948 Followers
168 Following
rameau

rameau's ramblings

A reader who’ll try anything once, including bad books in search of good ones. Eclectic as her tastes are, she tends to gravitate to historical romances, realistic contemporaries, and some fantasy novels.

Currently reading

The Complete Sherlock Holmes (The Heirloom Collection)
Arthur Conan Doyle, Simon Vance
Progress: 13 %
Koraani
Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila

I have a stalker...which illustrates perfectly what's wrong with Goodreads' new policy

                                     does this make me look fat 

 

You see, I like to read the forums over at KBoards, for a variety of reasons. I have a friend who's in the process of writing her first (okay second or so) book, I've beta-read and it's interesting to follow along with quite a few of the conversations there. There are the positive things I can take away from the craft areas and then there are the infrequent things that pop up in the Writer's Café that make me roll my eyes or grind my reviewer's teeth. Bad reviews happen and I could go on and on about why it's a bad idea for writers to sit and bitch about them in a public arena but I won't. Well, not too much.

 

When Goodreads decided, in all of their idiotic glory, to change their policy regarding reviews and shelving - and let's not kid ourselves, they changed their policy, they didn't clarify anything - they handcuffed reviewers' abilities to express interest (or lack thereof) in authors or their books. What they have said on multiple occasions was to go ahead and put a rating on the book though - that's okay! Ratings can be used to express interest for or against a book. 

 

Well.

 

I'm not someone who rated books if I didn't want to read them. I shelved them as "aobtd." Innocuous, right? Anyone know what that means? Anyone but me? 

 

Another One Bites The Dust. 

 

Then if I felt it was necessary (meaning if I was likely to forget or if I thought the situation called for it), I added a specific reason. Attacked Reviewer. Didn't Get the Memo Not to Comment. Spamalamadingdong. Trolls and Fanpoodles. If I saw an author who treated another author badly, they were just as likely to end up on my "aobtd" shelf because I'm not supporting an asshat, no matter who they're a jerk to. 

 

Which leads me to KBoards. 

 

Despite what Andrew Ashling and James Bruno would have you believe, I didn't trot into the conversation about the new Goodreads policy there and start slashing and burning my way through the authors who commented. I swear, the thread's like butter over there, it keeps slipping away and I can never find the link. If you need to read it for yourselves, it's titled Goodreads new policy or something like that. In it, there's a lot of bitching and moaning about what a horrible, miserable person I am, that action needs to be taken against me, etc. It's funny because none of these people know me. They don't know who I am, how I shelved, how I reviewed - and it's Goodreads' fault. Because of Goodreads' new policy (and behavior like theirs), I've removed nearly all of my reviews (I handed out an average of nearly 4 stars over 3 years), nearly all of my library and I'll never buy or review an indie or self-published book again unless it's by an author I know or one that's come heavily recommended. I'm not alone either. Yesterday, two large blogs announced they were no longer reviewing self-pubs.

 

Hilariously, a couple of the people commenting in there were on a shelf I used to have for "best supportive authors" that I got rid of because of Goodreads' new policy. I can't even have a shelf that describes how much I admire an author anymore. 

 

Some interesting screenshots (since Mr. Ashling is quick to point out he has plenty of me, I thought I'd return the favor - smile!):

 

Andrew Ashling's first post pointing the board to me and my BookLikes page (actually Andrew, I didn't take the page down, I accidentally deleted it when I was editing my reviews. I have to get used to this pesky interface). Or was it James Bruno who chimed in and pointed everyone here first? So many admirers. Hugh Howey thinks I'm unhinged, Betsy thinks I'm a vandal and and Andrew won't stop bringing me up.

 

A woman could get a complex.