The polarizing world of online book reviews
Opposites attract -- and clash -- on the Internet, especially in the online battlefield of Goodreads, a book review and recommendation website. Books are polarizing, whether it’s Harry Potter or Lolita. But for some users, the reviews about the books are even more likely to pull people apart.
On Friday, a group wrote a guest opinion piece for the Huffington Post. Their organization name says it all: Stop the GR Bullies.
According to the blog post, “Why it’s time to stop the GR bullies,” the anonymous posters wrote that “if [the ���GR bullies’] are given any reason to target an author, they will attempt to destroy that author's reputation and career for either their own personal amusement or for vengeance. We are not talking about honest book reviews giving their opinion on a book. What we're talking about is them trying to create negative hype around an author regarding the author's sanity, or posting malicious reviews that have nothing to do with the novel or were only posted to join the latest petition against an author.”
On the website that went up earlier this month, the group posted entries about authors that have been bullied on Goodreads and the people the website calls bullies. People that are singled out for entries on the website said they have been stalked by the organization.
So now, a debate has sparked. Who really are the bullies, and where is the line drawn between opinion and bullying?
Patrick Brown, community manager for Goodreads, wrote in an email that “the overwhelming majority of interactions on Goodreads are harmonious.”
Every day, between 15,000 and 18,000 reviews are posted on the website.
"Fewer than 10 are flagged by users," Brown said. "That means that 99.95% of reviews on the site do not attract this type of attention.”
A user can "flag" something they deem inappropriate to submit it to the service’s customer care team. Each post is handled on a case-by-case basis.
“We're committed to providing a platform for our members to freely express themselves and that means not censoring the site,” Brown said in the email. “Profanity is allowed, and we encourage members to write responsible, accurate reviews. If a review is flagged, we carefully examine it to make sure it fits our guidelines, and remove it if it does not. We also remove members from the site who abuse our rules and have done this in the past to both authors and reviewers.”
The opinions about opinions inspired others to write blog posts, and more will probably continue to pop up, mostly from authors. Horror fiction author Ray Garton contributed to the Huffington Post with a blog entry that highlighted his view of constructive criticism.
“When I taught creative writing, I discovered the majority of the people who took the class were interested in only one thing -- being told they were brilliant,” Garton wrote. “They bristled whenever I pointed out problems in their work because there were no problems with their work. It was perfect. And who was I to say otherwise? They were not writers then, and with that attitude, it's unlikely that they are now. That same attitude is behind the group Stop the GR Bullies.”
Most of all, the criticism on both ends is underscoring a conversation needed for the world of online reviews, interactions and the line between constructive criticism and bullying.
Author Foz Meadows may have posed the issue best in another blog entry for the Huffington Post.
“The questions raised by all of this kerfuffle -- the proper etiquette for author-reviewer interactions; the relationship between creators and critics on sites like Goodreads; the overall issue of when, if ever, a negative opinion ceases to be legitimate consumer advice and starts to be unwarranted abuse -- are all important, ongoing concerns and ones the book blogger community is committed to addressing,” Meadows wrote.
Christina Reinwald is a Summer 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here.
This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.