Benjamin, that's horribly offensive.
I was one of the first 23 who had whole bookshelves deleted without warning.
Did I ever badmouth anyone? No.
Did I say anything bad about anyone as a person? No.
Did I swear or use inappropriate language against anyone or any book or do anything juvenile? No.
Did I go by the rumor mill and condemn anyone based on anything someone told me? No.
Did I hear about people trashing other people? Yes.
Did I trash other people? No.
Was I respectful? Yes.
Did I hear about authors condemning and attacking reviewers? Yes.
Did I take anyone's word for it? No.
Did I ever judge an author because of what I heard? No.
Did I seek out proof of reported bad behavior? Yes.
Did I actually talk to some of these authors and to make up my own mind? Yes.
Did I ever go against the grain and make up my own mind in a different way than the others who condemned an author? Yes.
Did I decide I didn't like an author based on what I found? Yes.
Did I ever put that I didn't like a person into writing? No.
Did I lose friends because I made up my own mind? Yes.
If I found proof of bad behavior did I then decide not to read anything by that author? Yes.
Did I tell anyone not to read that author? No.
Did I focus on behavior and not on an author as a person? Yes.
Did I rate or review any book I hadn't read? No.
Did I assign books to a shelf called, "Focus on Behavior" to make it clear it was about behavior not personality? Yes.
Did I rant about how I felt about an author? No.
Did I post links in my reviews to the proof I found so people could make up their own minds? Yes.
Did I disapprove of the behavior of some reviewers as well? Yes.
Would I have added those reviewers to the focus on behavior shelf if I could or if it would help me in deciding what to read? Yes.
Did I ever in any way try to manipulate or coerce anyone into agreeing with me? No.
Do I think that an author's feelings are more important than a review of their work? No.
Do I think a reviewer should be allowed to use profanity in a review? Yes, depending on where the review is posted.
How about on Goodreads? Yes when appropriate to a discussion about that particular book.
Have I ever used profanity in a review? Yes.
Have I ever used profanity against an author? No.
When and why do I use profanity in a review? I sometimes use a word in the same context as it was used in the book (e.g., a profane euphemism for genitalia). I also sometimes use an expletive in a positive way such as "That was f&%*ing amazing!"
Do I have personal guidelines for when I use profanity? Yes. I only use profanity when the author uses profanity in the book and/or the book is very sexually explicit.
Would or have I ever use profanity in a review of a children's book? No.
Would or have I ever use profanity in a review of a mainstream book? No.
Have I ever used profanity in a review of any book other than an erotic romance? Once that I remember.
When? In a review of a friend's book which was very dark.
Was the author okay with this? Yes. He "liked" the review and made the funniest comment of all at the end of the comments section which was full of sexual innuendo.
Am I proud of myself when I'm this crass? Yes, in this case. It was one of the best reviews I've ever written. When the comments are taken into account, I think it
is the best review I've ever written, certainly the funniest. You can read it
here and decide for yourself. Warning: The comments are sexually explicit.
Do I think that a reviewers
opinions are sacrosanct? Yes.
Do I think a reviewer has a right to say anything he or she wants in a review? No.
Do I think a reviewer should get to say whatever he or she wants about a book or an author as long as they do not insult the author as a person? Yes.
Do I think this sometimes hurts a writer? Yes.
Do I think that matters? No.
Do I have any idea what an author feels when this happens? Yes.
Am I a published author myself? Yes.
Have I received a bad review? Yes.
Have I received a review that was insulting and pointless? Yes.
Have I received a bad rating by someone who hadn't even read the book? Yes.
Do these bad reviews affect the overall rating of my stories? Yes.
Is this hard to take? Yes.
If I could, would I delete these reviews? No.
Have I contacted or intend to contact any reviewers who didn't like a story of mine? No.
Do I believe that overall, reviewers are very nice and usually very helpful? Yes.
Do I think that's been shown in my own works? Yes. Almost all the reviewers have been kind and generous and any criticisms are understandable and either just a matter of taste or excellent feedback for me to take into account.
Do I think it makes it easier for me because overall my work has been well received? Yes.
Do I think that matters? No.
Have any authors respected my reviews enough to "like" a negative review of mine? Yes.
Have any authors contacted me about a negative review? Yes.
Was I respectful? Yes.
Am I now friends with any of these that were respectful to me? Yes.
Am I prolific reviewer? Yes.
Have I ever gotten called out on anything disrespectful or rude or anything before this? No.
Have I noticed that plenty of offensive reviews and shelves have never been removed? Yes.
Do I think certain reviewers were targeted? Yes.
Do I think certain reviewers were targeted by Goodreads? No.
Do I suspect certain people were targeted by people from StopTheGoodreadsBullies.com? Yes.
Was I ever called out on that site? Yes.
What review did they have issue with? One where I reviewed an article the author wrote demanding other writers attack reviewers. I put this into a review of a book of that author because it was the only place I could do it and I wanted to remember why I didn't want to read that author.
Do I think I should have done that? I have mixed feelings about it.
Did I immediately remove the review? Yes.
Did the backlash offend me? No.
At that time, did I know about the private notes feature? No.
Would I have put that in the private notes area if I had known about it? Yes.
Did STGRB.com ever acknowledge that I removed the review? No.
Am I still on their list of targeted reviewers? Yes.
Do I think this is why my shelf was flagged? Yes.
Do I think I was a bully? No.
Did the people in real life find the concept of me being a bully so ridiculous they still tease me about it? Yes.
Do I think I did anything offensive, cruel, or immature? No.
Do the people who read my reviews ever let me know that I am ever offensive, cruel, or immature? No.
Did I feel that I was following not only the policies of Goodreads but also the spirit of the site as well? Yes.
Do I blame Goodreads for taking down offensive reviews? No.
Do I blame Goodreads for taking down my reviews that just had links in them? No since they weren't about the books themselves.
Do I dislike how they did went about removing reviews? Yes.
Do I think they did a lot of things wrong? Yes.
Do I hate Goodreads? No.
Do I think this constitutes censorship? No. GR is/was a private company that has a right to determine what is printed on the website. What they did was designed to make the site a kinder place. They were up front with what they did, they just told us afterwards and didn't return the reviews to us for a long time. The site agreement says they can do this.
Do I believe that edit actual reviews would be censorship? No. Many sites do that. But I believe the words are the reviewer's own and should be either kept up or removed in their entirety. I believe it is unethical for anyone to post an edited review without letting the writer of the review no.
Do I think Goodreads has done this? No.
Is this the consensus among my friends? No.
Are we still friends? Yes.
Are we mature adults who can accept that we don't always disagree with each other? Yes.
Do I know anything about what censorship is? Yes. One example is that I have been the moderator for the Banned Books group on Goodreads for years. At the time of this writing, the group has over 4,000 members. The topic of what censorship really is comes up frequently.
Do I still use Goodreads? Yes.
Do I feel Goodreads has listened to me and been respectful of my concerns and frustrations? Mostly.
Have my reviews been returned to me yet? Yes.
Did Goodreads apologize? Sort of. They apologized for deleting my reviews without warning me ahead of time. They did not apologize for their initial email which basically accused me of going against the spirit of Goodreads.
Did Goodreads say I could put the shelf they deleted, Focus on Behavior, back up? Yes.
Did Goodreads let me put any of my reviews back up? Yes.
Which ones? One with proof the author is a convicted pedophile and one with quotes from international newspapers condemning the author for alleged plagiarism and other nefarious acts.
Do I think their method of judging which reviews are okay is a little arbitrary? Yes.
Am I frustrated? Yes.
Have I stopped using Goodreads? No.
Do I plan to do so soon? No.
Was I perfect? No.
Did I try to be? Yes.
Do I think I deserved any of the stuff I've been through? No.
Am I rabidly vocal about any of this? No.
Do I think this has resulted in any long term harm to myself? Yes.
Really? Why? Because the STGRB.com folks advocate harassing those who they don't approve of. Because I'm on their list, I cannot publish under my own name without running the risk of having the ratings of my own books voted down unfairly. I know for a fact that they have done this with at least two other people and have been told about many more. They have artificially inflated books using this method as well.
Do I have any physical evidence of this? Yes. For example, one author's book has a rating of one star because someone gave a review in which he said the book was drivel but the book hasn't even been finished yet. He has done this to every work of that author's. I am happy to provide additional evidence if you contact me.
Some questions for you to answer:
Where in any of that did I show immaturity?
Where in all this did I deserve to not be able to take credit for my own writing?
Who is being immature?
Is it mature to universally judge and condemn a group of people as being immature without full information about what happened?
What about when those people were accused of being immature because they allegedly judged and condemned people?
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