Edit: Goodreads is back up again. Looks as if they’ve fixed the problem.
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We’ve just been tipped off that Goodreads has been down for a large majority of the day:
Apparently, they seem to be experiencing an outage:
Stay tuned!
If you had any doubts as to the bullies’ obsession with Kara and the Goodreads anti-bullying policy announced last September, you can all lay those doubts to rest now. Eight months later — yes EIGHT months — they are still whining about it on the announcement thread. One of them went so far as to track Kara down online and stalk her LinkedIn page to find out how long she worked at Goodreads, when she left, and where she worked after that. Oh yeah, and to find out her age, too.
Isn’t it funny how Randolph calls it the “censorship debacle”?
Okay, bullies, we’re going to give you a couple reminders here. One, the policy change was put in place to enforce guidelines and “set the tone” of the site:
And if you don’t like the new rules, you can either leave, or you will eventually get banned for your behavior. Remember this cartoon?
Nuff said.
In our post Guidelines for New Authors, we said:
Guideline #3: Don’t do giveaways on GR. That attracts trolls. Trolls like free things and they are usually the harshest and many times the most unfair critics. For example, take a look at this screenshot where a troll says: “It was free and I’ve heard bad things. I’m so excited!” This particular troll was trying to get her friends to do a buddy read so they could trash a book they got for free.
In a recent HuffPo article, Maddie Crum elaborates on the same subject: 
Some of the examples she gives are priceless. Literary masterpieces trashed by those who shouldn’t be reading them: 
This is why we counsel authors not to do giveaways on GR. GR is swarming with readers like this (not all of them are like this, but many are). In this case, we recommend listening to the words of the Apostle Matthew:
“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” King James Bible, Matthew 7:6
On July 24, 2014, Kathleen Hale approached STGRB with interview questions pertaining to online bullying and our site. Below is the Q&A that resulted from that interview.
What reasons did you have for building this site?
We started our site two years ago when we noticed a certain gang of Goodreads friends (later termed the GR bullies) who formed organized attacks on authors on Goodreads. These were usually authors who had unknowingly broken some kind of “rule” (rules made up purely by the Goodreads bullies) and were labeled BBA. It would usually begin with the author getting verbally attacked by the gang who would swarm in and back the author into a corner. Then, this gang would attack the author’s books on both Goodreads and Amazon, leaving either nasty one-star reviews or derogatory shelving or both. They would also hunt the author down on other platforms like the author’s personal website or Facebook page. Afterwards, the attackers would blog about the author and begin what we call the “career destroying” phase, making it known that this was an author whom they did not support and would encourage anyone they knew to boycott their books. What we also found was that most of the bullies were fairly ordinary people who were following the lead of a few unbalanced individuals, not realizing that they don’t really know these online ‘friends’ well, but the activity has attracted a small number of obsessive stalkers who seek out new victims regularly in a demonstratively pathological need to harm others. These few individuals will actually bait authors online to get them to say something, anything, that can be taken out of context so that they can instigate the larger group to swoop in for mass attacks. Because this online gang warfare largely went unnoticed and unchecked, especially by the Goodreads management, we began our blog to monitor and document what was happening in order to educate the public and warn others.
Do you still get complaints from people about Goodreads? If so, how many per month, and what is the nature of the complaints?
Yes, we do. We used to get dozens per month when we started our blog. Now we get maybe one or two per month.
Do you recognize the name Blythe Harris?
Yes, we sure do. Blythe Harris was involved in an attack on a fourteen year old girl back in May of 2012. Blythe, who is an eighth grade teacher, and another GR bully named Archer Adam Pring, ganged up on this girl when the girl commented on Blythe’s review of a book. Both GR bullies proceeded to curse the girl out, telling her to f*** off multiple times. You can read about it here:
http://www.stopthegrbullies.com/2013/01/30/bully-reviews/
In what ways has Goodreads become a platform for bullying?
In conjunction with the Amazon fora, Goodreads IS the platform that started the online phenomenon known as review bullying. Goodreads management practiced an extreme laissez-faire policy when it came to their members. They allowed them to harass and bully authors with very little or no penalty. As a result, vicious gangs formed and authors could get bullied right off of GR for doing very little to nothing, even for just being friends with the wrong person. In 2012, the situation was so bad, we decided to start our blog to help stop the abuse. In two years, it has gotten better, but we are still fighting this problem of online abuse towards authors. These gangs still exist and they have spread to other platforms like BookLikes and KBoards. The best thing we can do now is just educate and warn others about the dangers that exist for all authors out there in the cyber world.
When you say “dangers that exist for all authors out there in the cyber world,” what do you mean exactly? What have you seen happen to bullied authors? And In what ways is this particular kind of bullying particularly nasty? Do you think it would be enough to drive a person crazy?
We’ve seen authors get death and rape threats. That was on Goodreads. Many are hounded relentlessly online, stalked both online and physically, and have had their private information published that led to them being called in their home and threatened. We have many of these incidents documented on our blog. It’s not uncommon for some authors to become severely depressed from being harassed or even have thoughts of suicide. So, yes, it can really drive a person crazy, especially sensitive people like authors.
This just in from Anon:
Another bully got the boot. Linda Hilton was deleted from Goodreads. Congrats, STGRB, you do a good job to make the world a better place. One bully down, more to go.
Linda has been one of the more aggressive bullies, attacking other authors online, condemning them for five-starring their own books, while at the same time doing the same to hers. She’s part of the Dear Author crowd and has been involved in multiple online attacks of authors, if not leading them herself. Her absence from GR is a huge relief.
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We just received this link from a reader. It’s from Linda’s BookLikes page. Here’s a screenshot:
Be careful reading the comments below her post. They may cause you to hurl violently. Typical bully whining and rationalizing as to why they keep getting banned.
This just in. Another bully was banned from Goodreads.
Each time we hear of a bully being banned, we will report it to let our readers know that GR is slowly getting safer. It hasn’t yet met our standards for author-friendliness, but it’s getting closer.
We just recently heard of a story that we’ve never encountered before. That is, Goodreads deleting one-star ratings of a mysterious GR Giveaway carpet bomber. If you read the emails we received below, you will see for yourself (we blacked out any identifying information):
This is another sign that Goodreads is headed in a much better, more author-friendly direction. Hopefully, this sort of thing will continue.
Good news, everyone! Notorious bully, Mahala (aka Spare Ammo and 38 Calibre Reviews), has gotten booted off GR! If you click the link below, you will see she’s completely gone:
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3072293-mahala
We’ve published several posts that included news of her bullying. Here, we will show you what she’s done recently to someone in the Amazon fora, doxxing his mother’s phone number (we left the first number to prove she actually posted it):
And here she threatens to call her:
Oh also, she admits to targeting self-published authors in particular as you can see in the title of her blog:
So, now all Goodreads members can now breathe a sigh of relief knowing this bully is gone.
We are happy to announce that Goodreads has recently gotten a little bit safer for it’s authors and readers. Notorious bully, Jennifer:
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/7402911-jennifer-cogito-ergo-sum
Is no longer there. Why? Because GR removed the “not interested” button on sponsored books (Dammit!) *sarcasm*
Hmm… *scratches chin*
Well, perhaps for Jennifer that was just the last straw in a whole list of policy changes that GR has made this past year, many of which appear to be taking more and more power away from the bullies.
Well, we can’t say we’re surprised, but the notorious bully who’s been trolling the internet for over a decade, Ginmar, was finally banned from Goodreads. If you click on her profile link, she is no longer there:
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6804123-ginmar
Why? Well, you all remember Ginmar’s Bully Review of a book by an author she has been attacking lately, right? Just recently, she did the same thing with another book (same series) by this author:
When this was reported to GR for violating TOS, management contacted her about the review and what did she do? She wrote another review:
This review of course was reported again, so she decided it wasn’t worth it, but hoping no one would notice, left her author-bashing shelves as they were:
When this was reported again, GR said, “Bye, bye, Ginmar!”
So, let this be a lesson to all the trolls. You cannot do whatever you want, because if you do, you will end up getting banned.
We here at STGRB are just glad to see Goodreads and Amazon enforcing their TOS and finally taking action against the bullies.