Listopia addicts

[Jaye]

I saw a comment somewhere that suggested content is being limited in plenty of places.
I think this was under a discussion about how long reviews are not being allowed anymore.

[Rainbowheart]

A book was deleted from my Zodiac Titles list, but I can't tell which one it was.

Usually that would show in the list history, but not in this case. It tells me no changes have been made. I've voted for 100 books, but only 99 are showing, and there was a blank space in my top 5.

I don't see how the book in question could have disappeared from Listopia without a librarian going in and removing it. Even when Goodreads deleted a book from its database for censorship reasons, it still showed that a Goodreads employee had removed it from lists.

This missing book is a total mystery. Has anyone ever seen this happen before?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Never seen it before, but one way it could happen is if a librarian combined two titles which both were on the list - and then did a duplicates check.

[Rainbowheart]

Thanks, Lobstergirl. Makes sense. I think I've seen that happen before. Maybe someone ran a duplicate check and one of my top 5 was no longer the default edition. It's still weird that it's only showing 99 votes for me. But I'm not going to keep obsessing over it, lol.

[Rainbowheart]

Do you see the link that says "some html is ok"?

If you click on it, it tells you how to format them.

[Rainbowheart]

I was just adjusting my votes on YA Novels of 2022, and all of a sudden most of my votes disappeared. I didn't delete them. Instead of 90-something votes I had 20-something. I was able to retrieve some of them because the list showed "0 people voted" on several and I was able to re-vote on those, but the rest are gone forever.

Has anyone ever had that happen before?

[~☆~Autumn]

Rainbowheart wrote: "I was just adjusting my votes on YA Novels of 2022, and all of a sudden most of my votes disappeared. I didn't delete them. Instead of 90-something votes I had 20-something. I was able to retrieve ..."

I have never had this happen and have voted on hundreds. Probably another goodreads glitch. About once a week I have some weird thing happen. Good luck with fixing this problem.

[Rainbowheart]

I'm sad. :(

About 40 of my votes are still missing. I spend a lot of time cultivating lists, and I have no idea how I'll find them again.

[~☆~Autumn]

Rainbowheart wrote: "I'm sad. :(

About 40 of my votes are still missing. I spend a lot of time cultivating lists, and I have no idea how I'll find them again."

I am sorry! As you know I do the same.

[Rainbowheart]

"Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes"

This is not happening. I wonder if it's related to the notification delay because various lists have not updated since last night.

[Rainbowheart]

I noticed those spammers and their hundreds of sockpuppets last night. I don't know if it's related, since we've had bad spammers in the past without it affecting site functionality.

I guess all we can do is wait it out.

[~☆~Autumn]

I ran into about 5 sock puppet lists tonight to promote some book about Hail. It was very discouraging. They are up right now and I hope someone can delete them.

[Rainbowheart]

They're all over the place. I delete spam books only if the list has a no-spam rule or the books don't fit the parameters. I don't think we're allowed to otherwise.

At least lists are updating again!

[Emily]

Sock puppet accounts created to spam lists are technically against the rules. Feel free to send a message to Support with links to accounts/lists where someone is spamming.

[Kris]

Emily wrote: "Sock puppet accounts created to spam lists are technically against the rules. Feel free to send a message to Support with links to accounts/lists where someone is spamming."

Here's the Contact Us link for Reporting Spam, to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/about/conta...

[Rainbowheart]

It's insane! Brett Arquette has over 2000 sockpuppets promoting Operation Hail Storm and they have taken over several lists.

[~☆~Autumn]

Rainbowheart wrote: "It's insane! Brett Arquette has over 2000 sockpuppets promoting Operation Hail Storm and they have taken over several lists."

Yes, that is what I kept seeing last night. I couldn't get away from it and now another person is complaining and wants someone to delete these lists. Someone should have the power to do this.

[~☆~Autumn]

Ok, I complained. If we all complain maybe something will be done about this problem.

[Sarah]

Here's a list of the spam lists if any one wants to report them. Hopefully, if enough of us complain, GR will take action.

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

[~☆~Autumn]

Sarah wrote: "Here's a list of the spam lists if any one wants to report them. Hopefully, if enough of us complain, GR will take action.

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1......"

Glad you joined. I am not sure how to complain about each one of these but if you figure it out I will be glad to try also.

[Rainbowheart]

Looks like someone rescued the Best Science Fiction Ever Written list.

[Emily]

~☆~Autumn♥♥☔ wrote: "Glad you joined. I am not sure how to complain about each one of these but if you figure it out I will be glad to try also."

The link to report is in message 131 above

[Rainbowheart]

Brand new list!

Farm and Ranch Life in YA and Middle Grade Fiction

Could use more voters, especially since I've hit the 100 vote limit. Both contemporary and historical fiction are ok to add.

[Rainbowheart]

How do we drum up support for voting on lists? I *always* run into the 100 vote limit. When I vote, I invite all my friends, and usually 10-15 of them will pitch in and vote, but it's not enough to get comprehensive lists going.

For example, my farm and ranch list above, I have at least another 100 books to add, but no one else has voted in weeks. I don't mean sockpuppets of course, I mean legitimate voters. I don't care which books they vote for, just that they vote. Why is it that spammers can get hundreds of people to vote on their lists, while legitimate lists are floundering? How do we get more people to vote???

[Rainbowheart]

Operation Hail Storm getting you down?

There's a convo about it in the comments on the Self-Published Spammers list.

No one knows what to do. Everyone is reporting, but Goodreads has not taken any action. This Brett Arquette person has over 12,000 fake accounts and has completely taken over Listopia. The recently active list section never gets a break from his spammers. It's constant, all day, every day. Most spammers get tired and give up after a while. Not this one. It's been going on now for months.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Librarians should delete obvious spam. On many of my lists I put a warning in the description that author spam or sockpuppet votes will be deleted.

Brett Arquette is Lois Duncan's son, weirdly enough. According to his bio he spent most of his career working in tech/IT. I guess that's why he so good at creating bots.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Votes purchased by authors are rampant on listopia. Here's an article about how to use listopia to spam your book:

https://joelbooks.com/how-to-use-list...

The author of the article and owner of that website is GR author Joel Stafford:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Fiverr is a marketplace for freelance services. It's where many authors go to buy votes for listopias, buy fake reviews, fake ratings, etc.

Here's Joel's Fiverr page, offering to put your book on 25 lists in exchange for $10.

https://www.fiverr.com/joelbooks/subm...

Joel will also create a Listopia with your book in the #1 position, for $15. (How does he ensure your book will be in the #1 position? By creating enough fake accounts to cast more votes than whatever book is in the #2 spot.) He will add a quote to Goodreads from your book, for $5. Other services he provides include promoting your book fakely on Instagram and Librarything and other websites.

GR user "Jason Rothermel" is an alias of Joel Stafford. Here are the listopias "Jason Rothermel" has voted on - notice a lot of repeating books there - those are the books he's being paid to promote:

https://www.goodreads.com/list/user_v...

Anytime you see a user with listopia votes that look like this - list after list where they just voted for one book -

"Bruce"
https://www.goodreads.com/list/user_v...

"Hayden Holt"
https://www.goodreads.com/list/user_v...

"Elma"
https://www.goodreads.com/list/user_v...

you know they are working for Fiverr, fake voting these (most likely self-published) books.

There used to be entire threads complaining about Fiverr, before Goodreads took down the Feedback Group.

[Rainbowheart]

Gosh, I had no idea it was as organized as all that!!

[Rainbowheart]

Oh God!!! Well, at least he's not attacking existing lists. Thank goodness for small favors.

[Rainbowheart]

If any Librarians have extra time, the YA Novels of 2021 list could use some major cleanup.

I linked to the second page of comments listing all the titles that need to be removed.

[Rainbowheart]

Yes, unfortunately. The librarian would lose his or her librarian status for sure if someone figured it out. I'd be tempted otherwise, lol.

[Bargle]

I am a Goodreads Librarian and I don't mind to work on the YA Novels of 2021, but I've never done this kind of editing before and I can't figure out how to get started.

[Emily]

The rockabilly werewolf from Mars wrote: "Arquette seems to have abandoned some of his lists. Would it be against the rules for a librarian to remove all of the books from them and leave the lists to disappear from the site the way empty l..."

Once I let Support know about several of his books on a list like that so that they could make the decision. I wouldn't want to do something like that myself.

[Rainbowheart]

Hi Bargle, what you would want to do is click this link....

https://www.goodreads.com/list/edit_l...

And then click "delete this book from the list" for any books that don't belong. Just be careful that you don't click the wrong ones. The ones that need to be removed are listed in the comments. Mostly for wrong publication date. A lot of titles are getting pushed to 2022. After you're done, you can post a comment on the list itself so people know they're taken care of.

[Bargle]

Rainbowheart wrote: "Hi Bargle, what you would want to do is click this link....

https://www.goodreads.com/list/edit_l...

And then click "delete this book from the list" for any books t..."

Thanks, Rainbowheart!

[Bargle]

Rainbowheart wrote: "If any Librarians have extra time, the YA Novels of 2021 list could use some major cleanup.

I linked to the second page of comments listing all the titles that need to be removed."

Looks like someone beat me to it. Thanks to whoever. :-)

[Rainbowheart]

I think they must have done something!

https://www.goodreads.com/list/create...

This was Arquette's main spam bot, and the link used to show at least a dozen fake lists.

They've all been erased now except for 3, and if you click on those, I think it's just that the GR software hasn't caught up because 2 of them show up as having no voters if you try clicking to see who has voted for what book.

[Rainbowheart]

Time to choose your favorites!

Your Top 5 Reads in 2021

[Rainbowheart]

In memoriam!

Dead in 2021: The Authors We Lost

[Rainbowheart]

New lists for a new year!

Feminist Interest 2022

Anticipated 2022 Literary Fiction

2022 YA/MG Books With POC Leads

[Rainbowheart]

New natural disaster lists!

Drought in Fiction

Tsunamis in Fiction

Tornadoes in Fiction

Hurricanes in Fiction

[Capn]

Rainbowheart wrote: "New natural disaster lists!

Drought in Fiction

Tsunamis in Fiction

Tornadoes in Fiction

Hurricanes in Fiction"

:) Thanks for the advertising, Rainbowheart!

[Capn]

Big time addict, here.

This week's obsession is representing France's regions. Drives me nuts that a large country just has large, unwieldly catch-all lists, and that most readers have only heard of "Paris" and "The South of France" / "Provence". Those aren't even the best bits of France, in my opinion, and I'm no Francophile! (Seriously, it's a Listopia addiction).

Anyway, I've been trying to sort books set in France into the current regions, and I just wanted to advertise that. If you could vote and help improve the list's profile, or add to a list, I would be grateful.

And if you know any Francophiles (or French GR users!), please do let them know!


Here are the lists:

**EDIT** - I have combined several of these lists, hopefully to make them more user-friendly:

France by Region: Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes & Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

France by Region: Brittany - Bretagne
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

France by Region: Loire Valley
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
Pays-de-la-Loire AND Centre-Val-de-Loire altogether

France by Region: Corsica
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

France by Region: Grand-Est (Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne-Ardennes)
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

(I omitted "Ile-de-France" because it's just Paris, and goodness knows it has enough lists already)

France by Region: Normandie - Normandy & Hauts-de-France
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

France by Region: Nouvelle-Aquitaine
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

France by Region: Occitanie - Occitania
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

France by Region: Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

And the other legit Regions of France, which are non-continental:

France by Region: Caribbean (Martinque and Guadaloupe)
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

France by Region: Indian Ocean (Mayotte and Reunion)
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

France by Region: French Guiana
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

And I also did one for French Polynesia, but it isn't considered a Region (has autonomy), which included all the unrepresented islands of Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Oceania...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

[Capn]

I was also wondering if anyone could tell me how to add an image to a Listopia header. I think the inclusion of a map showing where these regions are would be of help! :)

[Emily]

Capn wrote: "I was also wondering if anyone could tell me how to add an image to a Listopia header. I think the inclusion of a map showing where these regions are would be of help! :)"

Have you seen one as an example? I didn't think that was possible.

[Capn]

Oh yes!

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...

just off the top of my head! (All three by Bettie - I suppose I could try to ask her)

Edit: It isn't just Bettie:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
but I sent a friend request her way.

If anyone knows, please do share!

[Emily]

Capn wrote: "Oh yes!"

Thanks for the examples! I went to the "edit list" link (I am a librarian) and it looks like the picture was added in the list description field, using the same html that you would use to insert an image anywhere else on Goodreads (such as comments in groups or within your reviews).

[Capn]

That easy?! Oh dear.

Thank you very much for your help! I will give it a go!

Edit: Thank you, Emily - it is the pièce de résistance of my French lists. Merci! ;)

[Capn]

Just a request for help adding overflow to the following lists (I add books I cannot add because of the 100 vote quota but would like to in the Comments section):

Farm and Ranch Life in YA and Middle Grade Fiction
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

20th Century YA and Middle Grade Science Fiction
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Novels Featuring Miniature People
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2...

Smugglers and Smuggling in Juvenile Fiction
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

India in Juvenile Fiction (Kids/MG/YA)
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

If anyone has room in their quota to spare, I would appreciate the add-ins on my behalf. :)

[Amy (Other Amy)]

I added all of those except for the India in Juvenile Fiction list; I am rusty on adding authors to the system.