Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I know that this has been discussed before but I couldn't remember where. I found this review that had some swear words and also could be considered very offensive. What to do, what to do?
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/....

Sara, I do believe that Goodreads doesn't do anything about reviews just because that contain vulgarity or have offensive content. So, you can post a comment or ignore it. That's my understanding at least.

Or she could flag it. But that is not likely to cause anything to be done, unless it also contains TOS violations, like personal attacks.

Which is definitely not the case here. So flagging it probably won't do much. Except maybe give Sara a tiny warm fuzzy feeling, maybe. ;)

Sara Without An "}{" wrote: "I know that this has been discussed before but I couldn't remember where. I found this review that had some swear words and also could be considered very offensive. What to do, what to do?"

(a) Librarians can't really do much about other users; we're here to handle the books. This is the sort of thing you'd want to ask in the Feedback group.

(b) That said, what you'll hear there is what you've heard here, that you can comment, ignore, or in extreme cases flag a review.

(c) However, there's nothing in this review that's a flaggable offense; swear words and discussion that may offend against religions are not at all against the rules.

(d) I have to admit, I read all the way through the tranwreckage of the comments and got a giggle out of message 20 from Choupette.

I agree with all your points Cait, except (d)I got my giggle from message 19, though Choupette was right on the money in message 20. = )

I disagree with (c). There's no such thing as a flaggable offense; you can flag anything you want. But just like you can sue someone for anything, but if your case has no merit the judge will toss it out, if you flag a post that doesn't violate the rules, the flag will just be cleared when GR reviews it.

No net effect, except maybe an extra 2 minutes of work for a GR staffer. ;)

Rivka, is there any place on Goodreads where the rules are actually posted? Or if they're not posted, is there a way of getting a copy?

I know that when you click the "flag" option, there's a short menu of grounds for flagging. One is "slanderous," another is "inappropriate content," and the other is "off-topic." The definition given for the first one is a tautology, and the definition of the second one is far from a model of clarity.

Goodreads' basic position of not wanting to censor people's opinions, or writing style, is perfectly legitimate. But I think most Goodreads members would agree that name-calling and personalities don't contribute to intelligent book discussion, and turn people off from a discussion thread --even if they don't fall within a technical legal definition of "slander."

That's a really good question. I am not aware of somewhere that has that (outside of the relevant Feedback Group discussions).

A suggestion in the Feedback group is a good idea. :)

Also, keep in mind that moderators in a book discussion group have a lot of leeway as well. They certainly can make a judgment call on the inappropriateness of a given comment or discussion and delete it. Some groups are more boisterous than others. ;)

Thanks everyone. I thought that we were not supposed to do anything but I thought that I should just double check :)

Double-checking is always ok. :)

Goodreads' basic position of not wanting to censor people's opinions, or writing style, is perfectly legitimate. But...

...you think anything you dislike should be censored anyway?

I don't think he said that. He clarified exactly what he meant in the next sentence.

Everyone's in favour of not censoring what they approve of. That's obvious. The real test of our willingness not to censor is when we encounter things we don't approve of.

Personally, I hope that GoodReads sticks strictly with the legal definition of slander - anything else *is* censorship.

Besides, "name calling and personalities" (whatever the latter is supposed to mean), can actually be quite humorous to read and *can* contribute to "intelligent book discussion" (which is a very subjective term anyways.)

Here's a good example I found just today: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I put this one on my TBR shelf just because of this review. = )

That review is great! Thank you for sharing Carolyn... I started laughing uncontrollably at my desk at work and now people are staring... Gotta go!

Carolyn, that was awesome! Nice find!

Glad you enjoyed it! = )

I believe God closed his account, so he's unlikely to complain.

I remember some boards where the discussion was trashed by name-calling & 'personalities'. Not here on GR, but years ago on GEnie. Any Animal Rights topic had to be watched very closely or the participants would explode in hatred all over the board, as an example. I've been quite pleased not to see any such behavior here on GR.

That was a great review. Thanks, Carolyn.

Hey! Someone else who remembers GEnie! :D

I mostly hung out in the SF&F Roundtables though.

JIm, Ah yes, I had to deal with that as moderator and co-moderator and participant on discussion groups years ago at aol. At the time it was the only discussion groups online I could tolerate for more than 15 seconds. Goodreads is even better!

Rivka, that's cool. Janny Wurts is on GR & she was there, too. There are still a few of us. I was a sysop on the PetNet & started the DIY Home Improvement RT. I hung around the SF&F RT too at a blazing 300bps on an Atari 130XE when I started. (128kb of RAM running at 1.6MHz)

Did you have the front end 'Aladdin'? It was written mostly by a paraplegic in Hawaii who programmed it by blowing through a straw. Nice guy.

(sorry, I wander from the topic...)

SF SQRL, in my comment above, I wasn't talking about the review (which I haven't read) that started this thread off; and Carolyn, I didn't have any problem with the review in your link. I might not agree with a lot of opinions other Goodreaders express, and many of them might not agree with opinions I express, but that doesn't mean any of them should be deleted; expressing opinions is what this site is for. Sometimes (as here) disagreements stem from misunderstanding; but the way to deal with those is to clarify what was meant.

What I'm thinking of is personal attacks on other Goodreaders for expressing their opinions --the "you think that? Well, then, you're a disgusting, degenerate, Fascist/Communist sicko who doesn't deserve to live, and you probably worship Satan!" school of discourse. That kind of thing is happily rare on Goodreads, but it doesn't contribute to any kind of civil discussion ("intelligent" or otherwise). I don't think the real issue should be protecting Goodreads from being sued; I think it should be treating each other as human beings who deserve respect. (Of course, a lot of people out there, across the ideological and religious spectrum, just don't believe their opponents are human beings entitled to any respect --but that's part of the problem of our world today, which hopefully a site like Goodreads can mitigate!)

Well, we can hope :).

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