Talk:Goodreads

Books reviewed

Hi. This is the founder of LibraryThing, a competitor. I hope this article can be improved. It's a shame that LibraryThing has a full article, and Goodreads and Shelfari have such limited ones. (The smaller Anobii also has an aticle.) Clearly, however, *I* can't be writing their articles. So, some suggestions. Take them or leave them!

• The notability warning is clearly false; a decent number of secondary sources could be cited, including Time magazine. Do a Google News search for the company name. The press page (http://www.goodreads.com/about/press) is also a good one.
• I'd recommend it be contextualized somewhat, with links to entries on LibraryThing, Shelfari and Social cataloging. Some of the angels also have pages, I think.
• I asked about the ten-million reviewed and Otis confirmed that it was ten-million books ADDED, not reviewed or rated. I don't want to be snippy, but that's an error that should be corrected. (See comments 30,31 on http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/17/goodreads-raises-angel-round-to-help-you-find-that-perfect-book/). Otis seems pretty clear on this in that post, although it contravenes their press page (http://www.goodreads.com/about/press).

Lectiodifficilior (talk)

• Fixed the language & cites re: the review versus added. --Lquilter (talk) 07:02, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Broken link

The Newsweek link is broken. Lectiodifficilior (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 01:42, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Link removed. Boylo (talk)

Christian Fascist Propaganda

Looks like goodreads has an agenda of promoting ignorant christian propaganda. Lists are filled with christian books even when they are completely irrelevant to the list. For instance, goodreads has a boating list that has several anti-abortion books on it. And the authors are listed as goodreads authors. What a sham. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.68.156 (talk) 08:43, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

The place to take this issue up is on the comments sections of the lists in question on Goodreads.

As far as I know, Goodreads' only agenda is keeping their hands off of things. They are not responsible for the contents of the lists. In fact, they rely on members to keep track of things and clean them up.

There is an unfortunate tactic which has clearly been making the rounds of self-published authors, which is to have a cluster of friends sign up for Goodreads accounts for the sole purpose of voting their books onto as many lists as possible with as many votes as they can scrounge up. Thus many obscure self-published books appear in high positions on many lists, giving a false impression of their popularity. In some cases, as you have noted, they are on completely inappropriate lists.

As for the authors being listed as "Goodreads Authors," all that means is that the author has signed up for a Goodreads account. This is common, and among the self-published authors who pull this stunt on the lists, almost universal.Artemis-Arethusa (talk) 19:43, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Criticism section

I reverted the section for a few reasons. The first reason is that Carroll Bryant is not a notable enough person to merit being quoted on the subject. I've re-added Ray Garton's comment on the matter, but if anyone can find a remark from a notable author that has an opposing opinion, I'm all for having multiple viewpoints as long as they are notable and are properly sourced. This also brings up the subject of neutrality, as he is clearly someone that is involved in the controversy surrounding negative reviews on Goodreads. I removed the hotlink to the Stop the GR Bullies site, although I'm not sure that this specific site has been covered in enough reliable sources to merit being added. Most of the coverage for the criticism has been in predominantly non-notable blogs and Ray Garton is one of the few people that have commented on this that is obviously notable. Just like how we need to keep the articles for Victoria Foyt and Emily Giffin neutral, we need to keep this article neutral as well. I've summed up the controversy rather succinctly. Some reviewers post reviews or comments on/in reviews that are seen as bullying. A few sites popped up to report on these reviewers. Ray Garton defended the idea of negative reviews. That's really all that needs to be said. Phrases such as "a website was launched to report on the unethical reviewers" has tone issues, as it gives off the impression that the reviewers are absolutely unethical. Whether they are or aren't, that's a matter of opinion and we need to stay away from weasel words. We can call them "negative reviewers that were seen by the sites' users as bullies" because that clarifies that it is the websites that view the reviewers as bullies and doesn't state an absolute that the reviewers were unethical or bullies. On a side note, the more I look at the other two blog entries from the HuffPo, the more I'm slightly worried that they aren't considered to be reliable sources that could show notability. I'm thinking about moving them down to the EL section because there's slightly more leeway down there. The more I think about it, I think I'll do that. It'll include the blogs without running the risk of anyone questioning the reliability of the sources. Most blogs aren't usable as reliable sources.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 17:18, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

• I'm adding the following comment from my talk page so anyone coming in to give a third opinion can see all of the debate.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 19:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
• Carroll Bryant isn't a notable author? By whose authority. Carroll Bryant is just as notable as Ray Garton. In addition, Ray Garton's article on HuffPo has nothing to do with the criticism of Goodreads. The criticism of Goodreads involves bullying (i.e. attacks on authors), not negative reviews. Garton's article completely misses the point of the criticism. Athena Parker's article on HuffPo is a valid citation. The other HuffPo articles that were cited misrepresented the website, Stop the GR Bullies, by offering information about the site that isn't true. This is why I reverted your changes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Apollonia1992 (talk • contribs) 18:45, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem I have with Garton's article is that it has nothing to do with the actual criticism of Goodreads, which is about attacks on authors (not negative reviews). Also, Garton's article is a HuffPo blog, just like Foz Meadow's and Athena Parker's articles. Is it not? According to your standards, none of these articles on HuffPo could be seen as a valid citation and two of them offer information about STGRB that is untrue. I have a suggestion. Instead of using any of the HuffPo blogs, we can cite the article in USA Today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Apollonia1992 (talk • contribs) 19:37, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Edit request

I'd like to request that the article be reverted to the last version by me per the reasons stated above. The current version of the article isn't properly sourced for the criticism section and doesn't read in a neutral fashion. I also recently discovered that most of the Huffington Post blogs aren't usable as reliable sources, so I had moved the two blogs by Athena and Foz Meadows down to the external links section to avoid any "are they or aren't they usable" discussions. I had thought my version to be rather neutral on the subject, but if it isn't, can you just remove the section entirely? This controversy did result in the site changing their reviewing rules to address concerns by certain groups and authors, so I believe that it should be mentioned in some fashion but I don't want to cause WWIII over a simple controversy section.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 18:39, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

• I've been talking with the other user and I'd like to propose the following compromise sentence: "In 2012 Goodreads changed their review policies in response to concerns held by some authors and review groups over review standards." It's not as in-depth as I'd like but it does seem to sum up the issues without leaning in one direction or another. The basic gist of the whole controversy was that some reviews were seen as stepping over the bounds of the site's rules and in an attempt to address concerns by everyone, they changed the rules up. Does this sound like a good compromise to everyone? We can put this in the features section, I think, and just remove the controversy section entirely since there's some concern over the tone or verifiability of the claims in both versions. We'll source it via the Christian Science Monitor source as well as a brief mention in the USA Today. I'd like to put the blog entries down in the external links section but there's been concerns by Appollonia over the neutrality of some of the blogs, so I'm willing to forego adding those entirely. If they are added, I'd like to have all/both of them listed to give both sides. I thought I'd post this here and see what everyone else has to say.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 19:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

• Here's the USA Today mention. It's brief and could be seen as trivial, but it does pertain to the sentence.[1]Tokyogirl79 (talk) 19:42, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I would like to request leaving these two sentences in the section: "Goodreads has come under criticism from users over the availability and tone of reviews posted on the site, with some users stating that certain reviewers were bullying and encouraging attacks on authors.[12] In response, a website was launched to report on the reviewers.[13]" Completely removing "negative" and "unethical" and having [12] be the citation from Christian Science Monitor and [13] be the citation from USA Today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Apollonia1992 (talk • contribs) 19:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

• How about this: "In 2012 Goodreads was criticized by some authors and review groups over the availability and tone of some reviews, which were seen as encouraging attacks on the authors.[12] In response, the site changed their review policies over these concerns and some reviewers formed websites to report on the reviews and comments they saw as violating review standards.[13]" The term 'violate' is a bit strong, but since the breaking of a rule or guideline is a violation it's an accurate term. We'd use the same links as sources.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 01:53, 6 September 2012 (UTC)