WTF: Goodreads

[walkitout]

I don't hang out over there. Yet (probably because of Morning Coffee links on Nate Hoffelder's excellent blog, The Digital Reader), I keep running across truly horrifying stories about what's going on over there. This hasn't been going on long -- a few weeks, maybe.

I've been writing book reviews online since, oh, jeez ... 1990? Give or take a year? I think I just frightened myself. I wrote very occasional, not particularly organized reviews on an internet bb at the University of Washington. When I graduated, I went to DEC, and did NOT start hanging out in Notes, because I was not a VMS fan; I did, however, start hanging out on rec.arts.books and rec.arts.sf.written, where I posted, er, numerous reviews. I've posted a few reviews to on-and-off personal websites (now consistently "on" since, beats the hell out of me but definitely 2000), but I started this blog in 2004ish, and it has been the primary home for the book reviews ever since (the repro project meant a lot of those reviews are on the site).

Throughout this entire process, I've been getting feedback from authors, overwhelmingly a positive, feel good experience, even when I didn't necessarily like the books they had written. It is unlikely I'll ever have a single moment in my life quite as exciting as when I went to WesterCon and lined up to get a book signed and the author -- known for lurking long before I was participating -- said, "Oh, YOU'RE [my first name]". Honestly, more memorable than bungee jumping, particularly that first moment or two when I wasn't sure if this was a good oh-you're-that-person or a bad oh-you're-that-person (it was good).

Author feedback here has generally been in the form of brief comments and even authors who have not been happy about what I had to say about their babies have been excruciatingly polite about it. Apparently that's not the way things have been going on Goodreads.

http://vacuousminx.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/goodreads-has-a-structural-problem/

h/t Nate Hoffelder

From my perspective as a completely ignorant, non-user of goodreads, that sounds like a plausible explanation. Generally speaking, more moderation is needed until you have enough, and then a tiny bit more, to give people something to think about before they go demanding their own, idiosyncratic things.

Comments

[jinasphinx.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I just saw the next post on Vacuous Minx and it sounds like Goodreads is changing for the worse. I wonder if I should switch to LibraryThing?

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

I do both, and I think LibraryThing is better for cataloging, but not nearly as good for book discussions.

Honestly, I spend quite a bit of time on GR, and I almost never encounter the kind of vicious behavior that's being talked about right now. Not that it isn't there, because it obviously is, and not that GR doesn't need more moderation -- I just don't think it's as endemic as it's being made out to be. Or maybe I've just been lucky in my friend and author interactions, I d'know.

that's the sense I'm getting from comments threads

[walkitout]

_Exactly_ what you said: not endemic, a real need for more moderation, possible to avoid. I think GR has time to get this under control before panicking is appropriate.