What are Your Experiences on Goodreads?

[Jim]

Overall, my experience with Goodreads has been quite positive. There are some very intelligent and knowledgeable members from whom I have learned much.

No doubt, there has been some bullying; bullies exist in practically every social forum, but I believe they were isolated incidents that, once reported to a moderator, were appropriately addressed.

Some members may misinterpret a strongly worded, blunt criticism of one of their posts as bullying. I have received a few myself. However, I have been around long enough to realize that my personal opinion or perception regarding a subject will occasionally be the opposite of someone else's, and may even be wrong.

Sometimes there is no resolution to a difference of opinion and the antagonists must just agree to disagree. Another life lesson: when criticized, before becoming upset, consider the source; some people just aren't worth the aggravation.

[Christine]

Jim wrote: "Overall, my experience with Goodreads has been quite positive. There are some very intelligent and knowledgeable members from whom I have learned much..."

I completely agree. I've been involved in a few very lively discussions but never felt I was being bullied and certainly never intended to bully anyone else.

Given all the wonderful comments here, I have to wonder if the original accusation of bullying was not something other than what it appeared to be.I would have a tendency to go a bit deeper before assuming bullying has even occurred. There are members who take the integrity of this site very seriously and would definitely defend the site from unscrupulous authors.

Like Jim said these are intelligent and knowledgeable people. I find it hard to believe anyone bullied anyone else for no reason. I would believe an author who has engaged in illegal or fraudulent activity would definitely be called out on that.

Also I have a shelf named "Do-Not-Read" and on this shelf I record books that I don't want to read for a variety of reasons including simple genre preference, poor quality, inability to finish the book, and trusted friend's reviews. If an author's book made this shelf and that upsets him, he's welcome to PM me and I will definitely tell him why it's there. It is certainly not to bully anyone.