Fake Review Bombing Has Consequences? Huh .. Who Knew?

[jaF0]

Novelist’s book is canceled after she acknowledges ‘review bombs’ of other writers​

A debut author who used fake accounts to “review bomb” other writers on the influential online platform Goodreads has been dropped by her agent and had her book deal cancelled.



How 'bout that?

 

[Bramblethorn]

One of the things that gave her away was bombing books that hadn't yet been released, not even preview copies. Wee bit blatant.

 

[onehitwanda]

blatant

you misspelled stupid.

 

[sexywriterfla]

She got what was coming. POS.

 

[onehitwanda]

Summary for anyone like me who weren't aware of this drama.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

unfortunately, a lot of writers, agents, and publishers believe the market to be a zero-sum game and behave accordingly.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Alas, review bombing only has consequences in about one in a million cases.

But still, when it does, it's a doozy.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Who would have guessed that there are authors creating multiple accounts to 5-star their own stories and 1-bomb others?

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Who would have guessed that there are authors creating multiple accounts to 5-star their own stories and 1-bomb others?

It does raise an interesting ethical question, though.

Would the outrage be the same if she were Five bombing the other authors?

It's just as dishonest, but I'd wager would have been praised. Considering book(or story) ratings are not a zero sum game, why does it matter either way?

Discuss...

 

[NoTalentHack]

Who would have guessed that there are authors creating multiple accounts to 5-star their own stories and 1-bomb others?

On the internet? Who would do that? I mean, what kind of small-minded troll would even think to do such a thing? I’m glad no one around here does.

 

[Lifestyle66]

It does raise an interesting ethical question, though.

Would the outrage be the same if she were Five bombing the other authors?

It's just as dishonest, but I'd wager would have been praised. Considering book(or story) ratings are not a zero sum game, why does it matter either way?

Discuss...

There are authors who actually stated (in ref to ratings) that if you're not going to give their story a 5, then you shouldn't rate it! Narcissists, who think their stories are perfect (or at least think theirs should appear as such.)

Then there are those who play the game and if they can't win, then they'll destroy the playing board so no one else can win. They try to drag others down to their level or lower.

 

[Bramblethorn]

One other aspect of this blowup: most if not all of the authors involved are part of the same fandom. These books started out as Reylo fanfics (that's Rey and Kylo Ren from Star Wars) though as published they wouldn't be containing elements infringing on the SW copyrights.

So it's not just one author trashing random other authors, she was shitting on her own community. Kind of like if a bunch of Authors' Hangout folk managed to get publishing deals for our Literotica stories, and then one of us started sabotaging the rest.

Reylos... look, I live with one and she's behind me as I write this, so I'm just going to say they can be a bit "passionate" and "have strong opinions" at the best of times. I don't think Corrain is going to be forgiven in a hurry.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

There are authors who actually stated (in ref to ratings) that if you're not going to give their story a 5, then you shouldn't rate it! Narcissists, who think their stories are perfect (or at least think theirs should appear as such.)

Then there are those who play the game and if they can't win, then they'll destroy the playing board so no one else can win. They try to drag others down to their level or lower.

We're human. Our vanity is a fragile thing....

Who hasn't played the game of intimately following the ratings on a story you really like, setting a completely arbitrary boundary and celebrating when it rises above that made up number and bemoaning your existence when it drops below?

I fully understand that ratings are completely out of my control and have almost nothing to do with the true literary value of what I have written, but I'll be the first to admit, I'm giddy as a school girl right now because my latest story rose above that imaginary boundary... Go figure...

 

[alohadave]

It does raise an interesting ethical question, though.

Would the outrage be the same if she were Five bombing the other authors?

It's just as dishonest, but I'd wager would have been praised. Considering book(or story) ratings are not a zero sum game, why does it matter either way?

Discuss...

As a point of interest, Lit does remove 5 votes sometimes during sweeps. It's not just 1 votes that they remove.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

As a point of interest, Lit does remove 5 votes sometimes during sweeps. It's not just 1 votes that they remove.

Curious how they determine which votes to remove.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Curious how they determine which votes to remove.

They're not going to tell us; that gives the people doing the bombing info on how to evade them.

 

[onehitwanda]

Curious how they determine which votes to remove.

There are well-defined, trusted statistical methods that can be used on existing data to determine the likelihood that it is fake.

That aside, the average number of 5* and 1* votes can be calculated in sliding time windows to give you a mean and confidence interval. Given a story that's been live long enough (a week or more), provided you have more than a baseline threshold of votes, you can say with relative (and increasing) confidence that the story will receive 2 5-star votes for every one-star vote it receives. If your window function shows a significant deviation from that average, flag the five and one star votes in that window and run some more extensive and costly analsyis on them.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

There are authors who actually stated (in ref to ratings) that if you're not going to give their story a 5, then you shouldn't rate it! Narcissists, who think their stories are perfect (or at least think theirs should appear as such.)

I know of one even though he doesn't come out and say it. When I explained on this forum a few months back that I never vote at all because I don't want to disservice or upset anyone by dragging down their score with an honest 4 instead of an obligatory smoke-blowing 5, he told me in no uncertain terms what a horrible person that I was and how he was "glad that others didn't vote like (me)." He's a very active member here and likes to act all humble about his works but we all owe him 5s for the honor of casting our eyes upon the glorious grandeur of his words.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I know of one even though he doesn't come out and say it. When I explained on this forum a few months back that I never vote at all because I don't want to disservice or upset anyone by dragging down their score with an honest 4 instead of an obligatory smoke-blowing 5, he told me in no uncertain terms what a horrible person that I was and how he was "glad that others didn't vote like (me)." He's a very active member here and likes to act all humble about his works but we all owe him 5s for the honor of casting our eyes upon the glorious grandeur of his words.

All it takes is a contentious exchange here in the forum with certain 'authors', and within hours several of your stories quickly get 1-bombed. They invented 'cancel culture'. ... "I'll HATE anyone who disagrees with me!"

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Imagine something like this happening on Lit. Wouldn't that be a welcome change...

 

[forgotmyantidepressants]

I know of one even though he doesn't come out and say it. When I explained on this forum a few months back that I never vote at all because I don't want to disservice or upset anyone by dragging down their score with an honest 4 instead of an obligatory smoke-blowing 5, he told me in no uncertain terms what a horrible person that I was and how he was "glad that others didn't vote like (me)." He's a very active member here and likes to act all humble about his works but we all owe him 5s for the honor of casting our eyes upon the glorious grandeur of his words.

This is why I prefer comments and messages to 5-star reviews. The rating system doesn't mean shit to me. If you think my story isn't 5-star worthy, tell me why. Or if you absolutely loved it, please tell me what you liked about it. Ratings tell me nothing about what I did right/wrong.

 

[forgotmyantidepressants]

How pathetic. Lots of people have mental health and substance abuse issues, but they don't go around trying to sabotage the lives of others.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

How pathetic. Lots of people have mental health and substance abuse issues, but they don't go around trying to sabotage the lives of others.

Yet some do. i can introduce you to my ex if you'd like. BPSD...

 

[forgotmyantidepressants]

Yet some do. i can introduce you to my ex if you'd like. BPSD...

To counter your point, I'm a pot head and I don't.

 

[StillStunned]

How pathetic. Lots of people have mental health and substance abuse issues, but they don't go around trying to sabotage the lives of others.

That was my thought as well. She tried to game the system and got caught. But instead of owning it, she tried to avert the blame.