Goodreads has monkeyed with the settings (again)!

[Kathi, There’s no such thing as too many books!]

If your Goodreads groups seem quieter than usual, it’s because they are!

The main reason is that Goodreads has changed everyone’s privacy settings (without telling you) in regard to “Who can send me private messages?”. The default was “anyone” but now is “just my friends”. This means that unless you, as a group member, are Goodreads friends with the mods, you will not receive the announcement messages we send out for opening nominations, opening polls, etc.

Please consider resetting your Privacy Settings for this particular action (“Who can send me private messages?”) to “anyone”. To do this, go to “Account Setting” under your profile image in the upper right, click on Settings, and then scroll down to to where you see “Who can send me private messages?” Change the selection from “just my friends” to “anyone”.

Please share this information with any and all members with whom you are friends so that we are able to reach more and more of you. Many members only come to the group website after they receive an announcement alerting them about nominations, polls, or new discussions, and now they are no longer receiving those messages.

The moderators for this and other groups are trying to get a resolution from Goodreads, but so far, no luck!

Thanks!
Kathi, for the mods

[Kathi, There’s no such thing as too many books!]

And the reply from Goodreads support:

I'm so sorry to hear you're disappointed with our new implemented security measures for messaging. The default setting to receive private messages is automatically set to just my friends. This is set to prevent receiving unwanted messages or spam. I'll pass your feedback to the developer team so they can take it into account when improving our website's security measures. Not only that, but I'm really sorry for this since I know this has made your experience and other group moderators at Goodreads less enjoyable, and this is never our intention. We're always working to improve the website and make it more safe for our user's. We really appreciate your patience with us while we do these improvements and figure out what's best for the website and all of our user's while at the same time keeping the website secure.

Likewise, we'll provide updates directly on Goodreads Help on the status of this issue. All of these changes have been implemented to provide security to the Goodreads' user.
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We hope that you'll continue to enjoy the many free benefits of Goodreads and find more great books to read.
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If you have any additional questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Have a lovely rest of your week and take care.

[Michelle]

Do you know what would be really helpful? Instead of these ridiculous surprise changes that are done without announcement, why don't they have a pop-up screen once someone logs in which tells of implemented changes? Kind of like with software versions. A pop-up box outlines the changes made in the latest version.

[Paddy]

Thank you Kathi for taking the time to do what Goodreads should’ve done in the first place - and give all members a heads-up.

I agree with Michelle’s comment above - some form of information should have been made clearly and unavoidably so (like, oh I don’t know…a message to every Goodreads members inbox?!?) Instead Moderators like Kathi et all were left to do all the heavy lifting.

No disrespect to this Group or others, but I will have to check my settings as per the above info (again, thank you Kathi), as it actually makes me less likely to visit the handful of Groups I belong to as the messages [unintentional or not] feel intrusive and my friends get lost amongst it all.

In the past I spent many years as a Moderator, so I know how thankless a task it can often be, so please don’t take offence if my only option is to leave. But I’ll have a dive into my privacy settings and see what I can change for the better.
Not good enough Goodreads.
Bad Goodreads, bad!
*points to corner*