Michelle, the Bookshelf Stalker > Status Update

:(

I don't want to leave. I just can't support a site that tells me I can or cannot decide to buy a product (book) because I'm restricted from learning about the unethical behavior of its creator (author).

They really need to do something. I don't want to leave but the things they do make me question if they even want us to stay here.

I created an anchovies and pickles shelf to see if they would delete them. So far, they are staying. I hate anchovies and pickles so maybe I can put unethical authors on the pickles shelf.

Hi, Michelle! What is this new policy about? I haven't seen any notice... hmm.

◄KɪʀsᴛɪN► wrote: "Hi, Michelle! What is this new policy about? I haven't seen any notice... hmm."

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Here is the policy...

Since our inception, Goodreads has lived by a few simple principles with our reviews. You can see our full policy in our review guidelines, but at a high level, we believe:

1. Reviews should be about the book. If you think a book is a masterpiece, tell people why. If you hated the book, say so. If it had potential but fell short, share your perspective.

2. Members are not permitted to harass or threaten other people. We have always dealt with this promptly when it has been brought to our attention.

We have done our best to uphold these tenets, and they aren’t changing. But we recently recognized that we can do a better job enforcing them, particularly in the small number of situations where tensions start to run high. We took a long, hard look at our guidelines and how we moderate Goodreads and identified some areas where we can be clearer and where we can improve. I wanted to share with you some of the changes we are now making:

**Make it easier for anyone who feels concerned about content on Goodreads to get help from Goodreads staff. We have now improved the visibility of our flag button, and have added the ability to flag inappropriate friend requests. Of course, people can also reach us through support@goodreads.com. If you see any inappropriate content or behavior on Goodreads, please use these options. We’re here to deal with this so that individual members don’t have to.

**Better education for authors about Goodreads and our review guidelines. It’s clear that some problems have come up because some authors who are new to Goodreads don’t know what’s appropriate on Goodreads and/or take matters into their own hands rather than flagging content that they feel is inappropriate. We’ve therefore revised our author guidelines to make them clearer. We’re also working on improving how we introduce new authors to Goodreads.

**Delete content focused on author behavior. We have had a policy of removing reviews that were created primarily to talk about author behavior from the community book page. Once removed, these reviews would remain on the member’s profile. Starting today, we will now delete these entirely from the site. We will also delete shelves and lists of books on Goodreads that are focused on author behavior. If you have questions about why a review was removed, send an email to support@goodreads.com. (And to answer the obvious question: of course, it’s appropriate to talk about an author within the context of a review as it relates to the book. If it’s an autobiography, then clearly you might end up talking about their lives. And often it’s relevant to understand an author’s background and how it influenced the story or the setting.)

We recognize that not everyone is going to agree with our approach. People have different - and often quite strongly held - viewpoints about what should and should not be allowed in a review. We’ve had suggestions that no GIFs should be allowed, reviews should be limited to 300 words only, reviews should only be allowed if you have read the book to the very last page, etc.

What we try to do is provide room for our members’ own personal approach within our overall principles rather than set rigid guidelines. We’ve found it has worked well for the community overall so far and is something that readers value.

By the way, to put things in context, every day we have more than 30,000 reviews written on Goodreads and, on average, only a handful are flagged as inappropriate. That means 99.99% of new reviews are happily within our guidelines. (Funnily enough, we get way more flags from people asking us to add a spoiler alert to a review than any other type of flagged review.)

We think we have something special here with the Goodreads community and we want to support and protect that. Thank you for being part of this. As always, we welcome your feedback on these changes and on how to make Goodreads a better place for readers and authors.

Oh, thanks Michelle!

I have never liked Amazon and this only reinforces that opinion.

But I won't be leaving. I have too much time invested here in cataloging and reviewing. What I WON'T be doing is buying anything, even freebies, from Amazon ever again. I'm done. Hope Goodreads reads this too.

I am thinking of moving to http://booklikes.com/ I like the look of it.

Well I guess this is what happens when you sell out to Amazon. I just wish he didn't lie when he said nothing would change.

Nina Rose wrote: "I am thinking of moving to http://booklikes.com/ I like the look of it."

I'm going to check them out as well.

Just found that too. I'll be looking.

I am checking out booklikes.com too. I do like that you can blog there, which readers can't do here. Anyone know anything about riffle.com? I haven't been able to log in yet because it currently only has a FB or Twitter log in.

"Delete content focused on author behavior. We have had a policy of removing reviews that were created primarily to talk about author behavior from the community book page. Once removed, these reviews would remain on the member’s profile. Starting today, we will now delete these entirely from the site."

The utter stupidity of this is baffling. I don't personally have shelves or reviews based on an author's behavior, but when authors choose to show their bad behavior on public social media, what do they expect to happen? That no one is ever going to talk about it? It's going to be brought up somewhere else. And from what I've seen it's usually behavior that deserves to be called out on. I have read books where the writer had a lot of bad behavior shelves before and that's because I'm capable of deciding for myself whether or not I can separate the work from the writer. I'm funny that way. Having a brain for myself.

I like booklikes, but I also have contacts on Goodreads I want to keep. I also have an Amazon Kindle and I do not have the money to buy another ereader. And what happens when the other book review sites adopt policies similar to Goodreads when people migrate there?

Peoples' behavior has had an impact on their popularity more than once. Charles Manson's music career hasn't been the same since he scratched that swastika into his forehead and lost his everloving mind. That's an extreme example, obviously. But what I'm saying is, if you're not exposed on Goodreads, you're going to be exposed somewhere else. I'm not into policing people to the point where they're never allowed to make a single mistake or can't be imperfect beings. But from what I've seen GR users aren't interested in being the morality police, and this is just another version of behavior policing.

This is not at all done. There are many authors who write just for the sake of making quick buck and now we can't even discuss that. I would want to be leaving as well if this continues but "is there any better option as of today?"

Dorianna wrote: ""Delete content focused on author behavior. We have had a policy of removing reviews that were created primarily to talk about author behavior from the community book page. Once removed, these revi..."

Very well said. Sums it all up. Whats the meaning of social networking if we can't be social about our views? Author behaviour does matter and it should be discussed. And I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be allowed. We all have our own opinions. The writer I hate, does not necessarily mean someone would hate him/her as well if I talk bad about them. The good and bad aspects both should be shared about an author or an book because I think an average reader/person on GR is sensible enough to make his own judgment.

Meanwhile I will have to try www.booklikes.com

I set up a booklikes account but will probably still reamain here for the reasons already stated. I admit I like the blogging part. I always wished Goodreads had this function. I might mainly use it for blogging and not focus so much on shelving.

Rashika wrote: "They really need to do something. I don't want to leave but the things they do make me question if they even want us to stay here."

I feel like creating a shelf just to spite them.

I'm at Booklikes. http://sherrilovestoread.booklikes.com/

I like the format over there. I didn't really participate much in groups here anyway. Just reviews. I'll probably keep this GR account to read and interact with FRIENDS who didn't migrate somewhere else, but from now on I'll only be posting starred ratings at GR.