There are further reports of people being doxxed and fake accounts at Goodreads as part of the on-going harassment of Patrick S Tomlinson and the ensuing identity theft of a large number of SFF authors and notable fans. (for background see https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2020/01/05/looking-deeper-into-the-goodreads-troll-problem/ ) The current targets now include Paul Weimer who has been targetted by these cyber-stalkers before for speaking out against their harassment.*
After a clean up yesterday (see https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2020/01/07/goodreads-troll-update/ ) the same unreleased book has been flooded again with appalling comments including detailed personal details about people. Manifestly, Goodreads trying to deal with this on a review-by-review basis with users having to flag each one is not working. Goodreads does not even appear to be implementing basic spam protection as many of these ‘reviews’ have the same username and the same (or almost the same) content over and over.
In progress-but-slow-progress from Goodreads, I did get a personal response to a complaint I sent days ago:
“Hi Camestros,
via email support@goodreads.com Tue 7/01/2020 3:35 PM
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We’re in the process of carefully investigating the accounts that have rated Patrick Tomlinson’s books on the admin side, and we’ve removed the ones that have raised our standard red flags for illegitimacy.
Unfortunately, this process can take some time so we appreciate your patience as our team continues to work on this. Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.
Sincerely, The Goodreads Team”
2020 is starting with a tough competition for Weakest Response to a Crisis in the topics I’m covering. Obviously Australian PM Scott Morrison is well in the lead with his whole country on fire, but elsewhere the RWA board and Goodreads are doing what they can to look as disastrous in principle as our boy Scomo is in practice.
Camestros Felapton 
4 responses to “Goodreads is still a garbage fire but maybe they are waking up (slowly)”
Thanks, Cam. This has to be the nth iteration, and the most malicious yet of this sort of harassment.
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I wouldn’t normally wish the police on somebody but I hope these trolls get criminal charges for this level of harassment – and shame on Goodreads for enabling them.
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Sigh. I’m not holding my breath for that to be anything more than a “hide in the cupboard and hope ALL the *annoying* people go away” response. But I *really* hope I’m proved wrong.
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[…] one thing as it is pertinent to both EC’s examples and also the troll examples I discussed earlier this year. To register an account with Goodreads you have to give an email address BUT unlike most websites […]
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