Let 'em hire paid staff if they want the work done. "I ain't gonna work on Ammy's farm no more." (Because I was raised on Dylan.)

Reply to post #23 (show post):
For freak's sake.

Reply to post #23 (show post):
That is not going to happen. I use Shelfari for my books and when Amz was promoting it two years with the Fire I got really involved in editing, etc. Four thousand edits later and it is no better. I, too, kept thinking hire a couple temps and clean this up. Nope, too sensible.
You cannot even rely on the servers being up to the tasks.

I feel for you librarians, who put so much labor into the organizing work behind GR's database. I commend your decisions(s) to pull back from doing any more.

I've lost my enthusiasm for GR and am only posting protest reviews or the first two paragraphs of a real review, followed by a short note that further content likely violates some sort of policy, and then link to BookLikes. I'm just so irritable over there. I'm continuing to get sock-puppet group requests (sadly, have not been able to relinquish duties), friend requests from people I've never interacted with, and followed by a suspicious number of young-adult/romance readers (neither of which I read, but since I'm now an agitator...).

Reply to post #26 (show post):
What I'm still having a hard time to get over is that only last year, GR announced they were severing data flow ties with Amazon and switching to Ingrams, because Amazon was (surprise, surprise) being the bully it is, and Otis himself called on GR's librarians to help clean up the mess this was going to cause in GR's catalogue. Hundreds of librarians invested innumerable hours into that operation alone, in order to help keep the site independent and just overall the great thing it was. And barely a year later Otis sells out to Amazon so Ammy can now mess with the site every which way it pretty pleases in the interest of sales and profit? You've got to be kidding me.

No more free lunch -- no librarian work, no reviews, nor even ratings or book shelves.

And speaking of free lunch: http://www.freelunch.me/
The study dates from the time when Ammy had its big paradigm shift on its own website in 2008, but it's still relevant, and a mighty punch in the gut.

Agreed, Petra--that would be the 'social' part of the site--the affirmation and connectedness from reviewing, liking, and clawing one's way up the lists. But I don't feel like having anything deleted at the drop of a hat, and I'm going to continue pushing the issue in my own little way by linking reviews and including a statement why (idea courtesy of Megan).

My reviews on goodreads are gone; my book catalog just a few token books. I mirror just my currently reading so friends know I'm active. Post for librarian edits if I think they are ones amazon wouldn't like (I.e., removing all the review quotes from book descriptions). I don't really care if I get banned or not. I was following authors there rather than RSS feed but I'm halfheartedly writing down the links or moving to RSS/atom/Taptu.

Oddly, I was having to keep removing random books and random two star ratings I did not add. That was back today. I've decided to just go with it by adding a review to the random two star saying stuff like "This rating is a random glitch and not my opinion of the book. I'm leaving in place solely to help goodreads support track down the glitch. Goodreads support has my permission to remove rating and review.." Hopefully if enough authors complain about that review they will either remove for me or track down the glitch.