Goodread listopia

[Shannon]

Lobstergirl wrote: "Just randomly going through YA lists I noticed that book was atop this list
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/39...

where Buzzfeed's list of 14 books can easily be checked. The "spammy" book was #1 on the Listopia, but nowhere on the Buzzfeed list. I am deleting the spammy book now. The spammy book had 13 votes, all 13 voters voted it 1 of 1, none of the 13 voters has a friend, and the 13 voters had shelved between 4 and 17 books. These are called sockpuppets!"

That book is on 28 pages of lists -__-

Honestly, rivka, I know you said that if there's spamming/sock-puppeting going on that we should use the "contact us" form, but this seems like something that maybe super librarians could handle instead and take the load off of staff. Maybe give them the ability to batch delete a book off of lists due to spamming? (I know, this would probably be a really low-priority thing to add, but thought I'd ask anyway.)

And then, I don't even know what to do with the sock puppets. This seems like such a waste of time for staff to have to deal with crap like this and I'm really sick of seeing books at #1 on Listopias that have more votes than ratings or shelvings.

There's gotta be something we can do because it's gotten so out of hand.

ETA: What would you do with a Listopia like this:

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/19...

Delete it?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

There are many reasons suspected sock-puppets must be dealt with by staff. That's not going to change.

And I see nothing wrong with that list, rules-wise.

[Shannon]

rivka wrote: "There are many reasons suspected sock-puppets must be dealt with by staff. That's not going to change."

Ah, I suppose they are related but I know non-staff wouldn't be able to "deal with" sock puppets, but maybe help with cleaning up the Listopias. So, dealing with the books but not the people adding them.

And speaking of the "rules" for lists ... where are they? I went looking and this was all I found, on the create page:

Lists are public and everyone can vote on them, so don't create "Michael's Favorite Robot Books"—instead create "Best Robot Books" and seed it with your favorite books about robots.
If a "Best Fantasy Books" list already exists - no need to create another - it will be merged eventually anyways.
Please capitalize all list titles (eg. Best Submarine Books not Best submarine books)

So why were some of the ones listed above deleted? I noticed that Lobstergirl mentioned some being "too personalized" and then those being deleted. Is there another place where rules for lists are posted?

[Rhea]

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/28...

[Shannon]

Rh3a wrote: "http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/28..."

And there's that book again, sitting at #1.

Sigh.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

"Too personalized" were ones that were clearly designed just for one user. That violates the "lists are public" guideline. Ones that are editable get edited instead of deleted. Some are just "X's favorite books" and no real way to turn them into a public list.

That last one was explicitly so.

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

It didn't fit the description of "Time's Ten Best Novels of 2012," so I removed it.

[Ikenna]

Considering the wonderful platform goodreads has become for self-published authors especially, it is my candid opnion goodreads should add print-on-demand to its services profile. It will be great...!

[Shannon]

rivka wrote: "Some are just "X's favorite books" and no real way to turn them into a public list."

So, if we see something like that, should we ask to have it deleted? Would this be the right topic to do so or is there somewhere else I should post?

[Lobstergirl]

I just removed it from a list where it didn't belong. And it clearly is not a cozy mystery (read the description) so I'm off to remove it from that list too if I can locate it.

Removed from cozy mysteries.

Nonetheless this feels like emptying your flooded basement with a teaspoon.

Some help from GR would be nice.

Apparently the author of this book promoted it heavily on a Tumblr and Facebook, then did a GR giveaway. So many of the ratings for the book, and the reviews, are from people who actually read it.

But the Listopias are a different story - all the votes I see appear to be sockpuppets. One of the people voting them onto the lists is associated with the author's publisher, and he's created multiple sockpuppets to help him out.

[❂ Murder by Death]

I removed it from Florida Teen Reads as it was not a finalist or a winner in the Florida Association for Media in Education teen awards for any year I could find.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

The Holy Terror wrote: "So, if we see something like that, should we ask to have it deleted?"

Yes, that's fine. It will have to be another thread though, as I am closing this one.

Accusations of sock puppeting should be made using the contact us link on the help page. They will not be tolerated in public posts in this group.

Posts containing such in this thread have been deleted.