Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Hello,

It has come to my atention that four AO3 fanfic stories that I have added in the past were set as Invalid by GR Staff.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

I don't know if the same has happened to other AO3 stories, these 4 were brought to my atention by another user.

These stories comply with 'fanfic rules', meaning, they are completed, novel-length, publicly available.
I added those by addressing requests in the 'Adding new books and editions' section of this Group.

So I'm asking if there was a change concerning these stories and they are now ineligible to be added to GR.
I have a special interest in this as I usually add this kind of stories following requests in this Group, and I don't want to be breaking GR Policy because of this.

If there was a change in Policy, does this change also affect other platforms like Wattpad?

Thank you and regards

As this action was taken by staff it would be best to ask them about it.

A possible reason is that the author did not want his or her work catalogued on GR.

Martin wrote: "As this action was taken by staff it would be best to ask them about it."

If there was no change in Policy regarding fanfic, my contact would have to be lucky enough to reach the individual Staff member that set these Invalid, otherwise they wouldn't be able to explain these changes.
If there was indeed a change in Policy, it's better that I get a response here, as this will enlighten other librarians, not just me.


Scott wrote: "A possible reason is that the author did not want his or her work catalogued on GR."

I considered that possibility, but that can't be the reason.
These are 4 different authors, and 2 of them have other works still Public in GR.

But from your replies I conclude that there isn't a (at least not announced) change in Policy regarding AO3 fanfic.

It’s most likely that the authors contacted Goodreads and requested the listings be taken down. When an author asks for their fanfic work to be removed, Goodreads generally honors that request as a matter of policy, even if the fanfic itself complies with catalog guidelines.

You don’t need to contact the specific staff member who handled it, just use the general contact form and ask about it. They should be able to look into it for you.

https://www.goodreads.com/about/conta...

All of those books were fanfiction about Harry Potter. I am going to guess with all of the issues surrounding J.K. lately that she has changed her mind about fanfic. She used to only have an issue if there sexual scenes between the kids and the adults. To which I can't believe that would be something people would want. It is gross. The idea of ANY sex at all and the Harry Potter series is just wrong.

I will never understand why any fanfiction doesn't break copyright.

Tawnya wrote: "All of those books were fanfiction about Harry Potter. I am going to guess with all of the issues surrounding J.K. lately that she has changed her mind about fanfic. She used to only have an issue ..."

Good eye, I hadn't paid attention to what they were a fanfic of but that theory seems more likely to me than multiple authors noticing and contacting Goodreads to remove their fanfic all within a short period of time.

As I said before, it is very VERY unlikely that this is a case of fanfic authors asking for their books to be removed from GR.
These 4 books were removed in May 8th, betwen 11h13 and 11h17, there's no way these 4 authors would contact GR Support at such a short time window.
Second, 2 of these authors still have books in Public status:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
So, they would be asking for these books to be removed, but not the rest of them? That doesn't make sense.


Tawnya wrote: "All of those books were fanfiction about Harry Potter. I am going to guess with all of the issues surrounding J.K. lately that she has changed her mind about fanfic. "


Now, this is something that makes sense to me.
But if this is the case, why doesn't GR just announce that Harry Potter related fanfic is not allowed?

Tawnya wrote: "I will never understand why any fanfiction doesn't break copyright."

Nor why it's allowed on here at all.

Bruno wrote: "So, they would be asking for these books to be removed, but not the rest of them? That doesn't make sense."

I’ve seen that happen before, sometimes a specific work gets flagged for removal while others are left alone. It’s usually because the work is about to be published, either traditionally or through Amazon, but there could be other reasons too.

Bruno wrote: "But if this is the case, why doesn't GR just announce that Harry Potter related fanfic is not allowed?."

Yeah, it can definitely be confusing. But honestly, we can only guess, unless someone checks with staff directly, we probably won’t know the full story.

I thought that when staff did an edit there is a name and photo,
but when Crazy Bot plays in the stacks it is just "Goodreads."
None of these are showing an employee edit.
Have you tried changing the status back to valid?
I think Crazy Bot is to blame for this.

Edwina wrote: "I thought that when staff did an edit there is a name and photo,
but when Crazy Bot plays in the stacks it is just "Goodreads."
None of these are showing an employee edit.
Have you tried changing t..."

The "Goodreads" account is used by both staff and the bot. In some cases, staff uses it to make manual edits. Since the book’s status was changed by an admin, we aren’t able to revert it. Unfortunately, there's no way to know whether the edit was made by the bot or by staff unless they confirm it directly.

@Bruno
After you raised this question here I stopped adding the links of fanfic, AO3 and Wattpad requests to the appropirate folder in the Language section.

Did you receive a satisfactory reply and will you be resuming dealing with these requests shortly? Or are things still unclear?

nice

good one

Being a Goodreads employee, can you please comment on this question, @Desig?

@Emmy, you should keep adding them to the thread. The fact that I don't add them right now, doesn't mean that other librarians won't do it, I know that at least one other librarian likes to add these stories to GR.

I'm not adding them right now because I think it's a potential waste of time to add stories that are later set Invalid by Staff. Not to mention that it can bring me problems.

I'm 90% sure that Tawnya's post hit the spot, the problem is most likely related to Harry Poter.
But I need to be 100% sure to make a final decision, so I sent this question to GR Support, as suggested by some librarians. Depending on the answer I get, I'll make a decision if I keep adding these to GR or not.

Bruno wrote: "...I sent this question to GR Support, as suggested by some librarians. Depending on the answer I get, I'll make a decision if I keep adding these to GR or not."


I have received a response a couple of days ago.
I'll just put it here:

Hi Bruno,

Thanks for your email! those records were set invalid as per author requests, which complies with our policies.

If they request the rest to be set as invalid, we'll do it as well.

I hope this helps! If there's anything else I can help you with, please let me know!
​
Best,