Vox Day reports on Vox Popoli that Goodreads deleted his account and also the Rabid Puppies Group just 36 hours after he set them up.
He received this message from Goodreads:
Hello Vox,
Your account was recently brought to our attention. Upon review, we have decided to remove it from the site. A CSV of the books you shelved is attached for your personal records. You are banned from using Goodreads in any capacity going forward.
Sincerely,
The Goodreads Team
I checked Goodreads, and both accounts are gone. (There remains an older Vox Day account, where all the entries were made in 2009.)
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I’m not sure if laughter or tears are the more appropriate response to the conspiracy “denials”.
Y’all do understand that Brave New World and 1984 were not instruction manuals, right?
Well… that evil scheme didn’t last long.
I have to wonder though, what did he actually think was going to happen? Did he think Goodreads just wouldn’t care that somebody was running a group with the express purpose of making their site useless?
It does confirm my sense that he’s desperately casting about trying to find some way of leveraging the power of a few hundred idiots and hangers-on eager to do whatever he says. You know, going this way and that, looking for an unguarded drainage tunnel he can run through with an explosive device and bring down the outer wall of Helm’s Deep.
*reads screenshots*
All that…to get a free story from several years ago…rated below 3.2…on Goodreads.
How many times does this soggy noodle have to scream “I meant to win at losing at a stupid thing!” before his followers clear out for something less sad?
@RedWombat: He’s succeeding at demonstrating the attitudes they admire. Basic performative communications. Success isn’t relevant, since all failure is the result of enemy action.
I will say one thing, and only one, for Vox Day. On his “I meant to do that” link, he is right that the first review he displays is an exceptionally nasty bit of authorial abuse. The question is, why did he not then report it? Why not put his energies towards – oh, right. if it gets flagged and removed, then the SJWs aren’t hypocrites.
Pingback: since gaming the hugo awards failed, let’s try goodreads | Crime and the Blog of Evil
Is there some significance to a Goodreads rating dropping below 3.2, like, I dunno, the author getting struck off their Christmas card list? Or is it just a ridiculously soft target that can be achieved by a small number of VD’s Awkward Squad posting one-star ratings, allowing him to claim Victory?
Y’all do understand that Brave New World and 1984 were not instruction manuals, right?
And you just revealed to the world that you didn’t really read Brave New World, or didn’t pay any attention at all when you leafed through it once.
Ah Brave New World – the story about despots who organize people into Alphas, Betas & Gammas…
Lenora Rose: I will say one thing, and only one, for Vox Day. On his “I meant to do that” link, he is right that the first review he displays is an exceptionally nasty bit of authorial abuse. The question is, why did he not then report it? Why not put his energies towards – oh, right. if it gets flagged and removed, then the SJWs aren’t hypocrites.
If I were a member of GoodReads (I’m not, and I won’t be, for reasons) I would flag and report that review. I hope that someone else will. No matter how much I may agree with the content, that sort of personal commentary in a book review is not acceptable coming from anyone, Puppy or otherwise.
I’m surprised Sean (that’s the infiltrator, right?) reported the RP activities. It must have been tempting to stick around and watch them gleefully plotting to take over the world. Though now that I think about it, I barely ever read all the comments on a VD post, it gets too repetitive.
“The landscape is filled with shrieking, treacherous SJWs, but they are poorly coordinated and foolish. Large, dumb animals that will make a fine meal for hungry canines.”
This is the line that elevated this entire short-lived project from “entertaining pratfall” to “sublime fail.”
“Foul traitors. We keep trying to eat them, and then they betray us! Oh, such lack of loyalty!”
Peter J –
More pathetic than that really; It means he convinced people to upvote his works and books he likes and downvote others which means (to him) that his books and books he likes are objectively better. Kind of like the Hugos, instead of doing the work to get better the Evil League of Redundancy throw a rhetorical tantrum hoping it’ll convince the gullible to give them the ratings and awards they feel they’re entitled to. If that doesn’t work, well they’re satisfied with wrecking the ratings of other authors and blocking other people from being nominated for awards. If you ask them why their self-esteem is so low that they’d feel the need to do stuff like that just to feel good about themselves, they’ll just respond that if you just gave them awards and told them how superior they are in the first place they wouldn’t have to.
Matt Y:
And he’s shown that to be a point of pride before. Note his trumpeting here on F770 how his books are “objectively” better:
I commented at the time:
And now we have proof that Mr. Beale attempts to game ratings to goose his numbers, and has no compunctions against doing so.
The interesting question now is: since GoodReads is owned by Amazon, what action will Amazon take against Mr. Beale and his cohorts? Will they remove their reviews there as well? Would they even go so far as to remove Castalia House books from their product offerings? (Amazon is entitled to terminate their contract with Beale at any time and for any reason, and repeatedly violating the terms of their review policies which do not permit artists, authors, developers, manufacturers, publishers, sellers or vendors to write Customer Reviews for their own products or services, or to post negative reviews on competing products or services, would certainly give cause.)
Could Castalia House, a publishing concern with no store presence worth mentioning and primarily an e-book publisher, even survive without Amazon, the largest book store chain in the world?
Amazon.com and you’re done, indeed.
Glenn, Beale seems to be afraid of exactly what you suggest.
14. VD January 05, 2016 9:30 AM
Any point in trying to contact Amazon now to point out the issue, especially if we spend a fair bit at Amazon?
No. Leave Amazon out of it. They have enough trouble dealing with their own reviews, they can’t be expected to care about some shenanigans at Goodreads.
Laura
Please note that not all of us are good at doing the baited breath thing; my lung function tests are always a source of bemusement to those doing them, just as my ct scans are to my doctors. Apparently I should be dead, but I’m not, so now that you’ve reminded me I will do a a quick trip to You Tube to listen to the Bee Gees, who traditionally are Birthday Track 1 on Staying Alive.
@Dingus: The most hilarious thing about that exchange is that the commenter thinks that Beale’s minions spend enough at Amazon for Amazon to care about them.
I wonder what Amazon considers spending quite a bit? I’m guessing unless you are spending millions at Amazon your small potatoes. They aren’t just a bookstore or even just a store. Think cloud computing among other side businesses.
Dingus –
Here I thought Puppies weren’t afraid to shit where they eat.
I suppose it would be embarrassing for Amazon as one of the foremost eBook publishers to allow the head of a small publisher to encourage intentional misuse of an affiliate program ratings system, along with that person highlighting and promoting attacks on other Amazon and GR authors. At least he wouldn’t be dumb enough to continue doing that.
Aaron –
What, you mean a group who was pissed that a free internet comic wasn’t included in the Hugo packet might not spent a ton of money on Amazon?
What, you mean a group who was pissed that a free internet comic wasn’t included in the Hugo packet might not spent a ton of money on Amazon?
Even if every single minion spent $100 a week at Amazon, it wouldn’t amount to even a blip on Amazon’s radar screen.
Matt Y: What, you mean a group who was pissed that a free internet comic wasn’t included in the Hugo packet might not spent a ton of money on Amazon?
Hey, don’t forget that that they didn’t actually need that free internet comic which wasn’t in the packet to be in the packet, because they had all read it on the internet before nominating it, and a whole bunch of them were screaming about it not being in the packet only because they’d forgotten that they’d actually read and nominated it.
Nor does Castalia House sell enough to possibly be a concern to Amazon. Amazon curtailed sales of Hachette’s 5,000 titles by halting pre-orders, delaying shipments (despite plentiful supply), eliminating discounts and removing some promotional pages entirely earlier this year, and Hachette does hundreds of millions of dollars of business with Amazon.
If Castalia does hundreds of thousands of dollars of business with them, I’d be astounded.
Nice work, Sean.
Am amazed that GR did anything, given their past record of not.
If all Teddy’s failures are due to enemy action, doesn’t that mean his enemies are really good? Better than he is? Weeeeee arrrreeee the champions, no time for losers.
SJWs are notoriously also NOT influenced by chocolate and cat food.
But if we call Teddy “Trelane”, that would mean his parents are calm, reasonable people. And from what we know of them, that isn’t true — how else do you think he got the way he is?
Be reaaaal interesting if GR’s parent company did anything about this, but I think they’re completely hands-off. People have been gaming the ratings on self-published books there since day one.
I wonder how much of GR’s reputation for not doing anything about problems comes from actual apathy and how much stems from mistaken assumptions about how the site works.
As we’ve seen, when alerted to a problem, they can act swiftly and decisively. That’s the key, though: someone has to let them know. There’s just so much content in so many places that it’s impossible for them to be proactive in policing even a tiny fraction of it. That’s why they make it as easy as they can for people to report problems. It’s far less labor-intensive to check out reports than it is to go on patrol; expecting the mods to Just Know about problems is akin to expecting paramedics to Just Know when someone has a heart attack and needs an ambulance. It’s not going to happen.
As I’ve said, I’m a mod on a reasonably high-traffic forum – but it’s orders of magnitude smaller than GR. I participate in some areas, and if I see problems, I’m expected to put on my moderator hat. The same goes for other moderators. Otherwise, it’s up to users to report posts that they feel cross the line. It’s entirely possible (in theory, anyway) for a flamewar to go unchecked in an obscurely-named thread simply because all the participants have thick skin and nobody reports any of the posts. So it goes.
I’m also a librarian (regular strength) on Goodreads. I don’t participate much in the groups, and have no moderation powers there… but if I do stumble across a review or comment that should be flagged, I do so. That’s part of being a good citizen: help maintain the place. Likewise, I don’t frequently go browsing around hoping to find errors in book listings. Most of the ones I find come from adding those books to my own collection, and I patch things up when I find problems. It’s not always immediate, because sometimes there are not enough spoons, but I have a couple of shelves I use to keep track of such problems.
In short, if you see something problematic on a big site – whether it’s Goodreads or some other place – don’t assume it’s there because a mod has approved it. Assume the mods haven’t seen it, and take a minute or so to flag it for their attention. Be an active participant, not a critical bystander. You saw something, so say something. (And no, this does not mean “add your own comment flaming the offender.” That’s not helpful. Flag the post and move on.)
Of course, if they still don’t do anything, then maybe there’s something else going on. Nobody and no place is perfect.
Laura Resnick: “Meh. Given the eye-rolling silliness of all their shit to date, I am skeptical that it will get real–now, soon, or ever.”
The five categories burned and the millions of bytes wasted here were but a dream. Right?
Beale has been rhetorically demanding to know what it is he has to lose that could motivate him not to act like a terrible human being. Now we know one there is one thing: Amazon. Doesn’t seem likely, all things considered, but perhaps the GR thing is giving him pause – sea changes have come before, after all.
If anyone wants to venture into the (other) hive of scum and villainy, VD is now redefining what his aims are to avoid failure – “The goal was to see to what extent the SJWs were running amok on Goodreads and smoke them out” – plus pointing his followers at Sean O’Hara’s reviews (for no stated reason whatsoever, obviously), and also touting his next project: a fork of Wikipedia to be “a right wing alternative”.
Mark: If anyone wants to venture into the (other) hive of scum and villainy, VD is now redefining what his aims are to avoid failure – “The goal was to see to what extent the SJWs were running amok on Goodreads and smoke them out” – plus pointing his followers at Sean O’Hara’s reviews (for no stated reason whatsoever, obviously), and also touting his next project: a fork of Wikipedia to be “a right wing alternative”.
To quote a line I enjoyed in Stross’ The Annihilation Score:
He’s absolutely Upney*; halfway to Dagenham, in fact.
* the next stop out from Barking on the District Line
Beale should be worried about Amazon. I took a glance and noticed the 5-star reviews of at least two of his books are likely to come from people who do wholesale 5-starring of a number of Puppy/Puppy adjacent books. By the fifth (conspiracy or coincidence?!) 5-star rating on one particular book by Beale, I found someone who uses the same name on Amazon as on Beale’s blog, where he can be seen offering advice to people on how to use multiple Twitter accounts to up Beale’s follower account.
Obviously I have no access to Amazon statistics or anything, but given the past behavior of Beale ‘N’ Minions, those ratings on Amazon are looking a little iffy right now.
@Mark: a fork of Wikipedia to be “a right wing alternative”.
That worked so well before, too.
a fork of Wikipedia to be “a right wing alternative”.
Given that Conservapedia already exists, this goes on the stack of “brilliant ideas VD has had that are imitations of existing things”.
There already is a right wing alternative to Wikipedia. It’s called Conservapedia, and it’s here. It’s hilarious. (Although I don’t think the writers intended it to be a joke.)
Oops, ninja’d you Aaron
… And this is why I roll my eyes whenever a Puppy tells us that Beale has clever Xanatos Gambits set up. No, he doesn’t. He just claims victory whatever happens and some people are gullible enough to believe him. That’s bluffing, not soopah genius machinations.
Has a publisher ever been permanently kicked off Amazon for bad behaviour before?
He’s like the mall-ninja: an aspirational Secret Thought-Policeman.
He just claims victory whatever happens and some people are gullible enough to believe him. That’s bluffing, not soopah genius machinations.
Its not even good bluffing. It’s sticking your lip out and claiming that you didn’t eat a cupcake while you have crumbs and icing smeared on your face.
@Aaron
What I can’t figure out is why anyone believes him.
I like the way that there’s no need for editorial with VD – whatever he’s said or done contains the seeds of its own hilarity.
What I can’t figure out is why anyone believes him.
There’s a reason the term “useful idiot” was coined.
Yes, companies have been kicked from Amazon for Beale-like behaviour.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/9/5699724/amazon-strips-mediabridge-of-selling-privileges
I also can’t figure out why anyone believes him. I get the whole “useful idiot” thing, but there is a clear pattern of Announce Evil Plan, Execute Evil Plan, Watch Evil Plan Fail, Announce You Meant To Do That and It Clearly Proves Something, Something over and over again. I actually find it a little offensive that at least a few of VD’s followers don’t occasionally realize, huh, this sooper genius I’m following doesn’t seem to be very good at strategy and tactics.
I would like to think that kind of dimness was only present in the minions of cartoon villains.
I actually find it a little offensive that at least a few of VD’s followers don’t occasionally realize, huh, this sooper genius I’m following doesn’t seem to be very good at strategy and tactics.
The ones who figured it out already abandoned him, and I suspect they did so quietly and without telling anyone because they know how he loves to turn his mob on heretics.
@Mr. Mister
Apparently it was a bad dream–for you.
@Mr. Mister
No, we’ve all been in the shower. Or lost in our memory palaces. Or maybe it’s parallel universes.
No, wait, clones! Clones are always the best SF plot explanation.
Yeah, if I were leaving something like Beale I’d leave very quietly.
I did attempt to flag that really ugly review of Beale * — but on Goodreads, I’m considered an author. Apparently that means I can’t.
*I also note that among 2 star and lower reviews ostensibly of Throne of Bones, a disturbingly huge percentage are reviews of Beale as a horrible human being, most of them quoting his opinion of N.K. Jemisin. It was refreshing to hit a 1 star review that had at least looked at the book. (And yes, several of the 5 star reviews seemed equally ignorant of the book contents…)
Huh, did Mister get asterisk’ed? I see him in my email, but he’s not on this page.
The ones who figured it out already abandoned him…
Leaving the remainder to continually reenact Pinky and the Brain comedy bits, I suppose. I guess I’ll just exit stage left muttering that real people shouldn’t act out comic villain plus minions scripts so faithfully.
@Hampus
Interesting. I expect Beale will be treading very lightly for a little while, at least with respect to Amazon.
@Cheryl S.
I wouldn’t announce that I was parting ways if I were them. They’ve helped with harassment campaigns, after all, so they know exactly what would happen.
@Mr. Mister
No categories were burned. We talked about a lot of books and food and date formats and other things, though. It was quite a lovely time for the most part.
@redheadedfemme
He’s on this page, he’s just not right at the bottom of the comments, presumably because of a slight mod delay.