You all remember the bully “” as outlined by Looney, right?  If not, here it is:

CodeOfHonour

These are essentially the “rules” according to the Amazon Fora Trolls (also known as the Amazon Review Mafia or ARM).  Oh, and btw, if you remember, Looney broke these “rules” twice, here and here.

Okay so, get this.  We just recently received a link to a review where the other trolls broke the code, too.  Here’s the :

Review

In the comments that follow the review, you will notice a few familiar names.  At first, Mayhem and Anna K. jump in to harass the reviewer, calling him names and reprimanding him for several “offenses” (offenses the bullies have been guilty of for years, that is, reviewing a book they haven’t fully read).  Then, the trolls start accusing the reviewer of being an author until Coaxial jumps in and calls that theory into question.  The whole thing is quite ridiculous, but we thought we’d include it for everyone’s amusement:

Comment1

Comment2

Comment3

Comment4

Comment5

Notice the comment by Coaxial (the self-appointed grammar police): “haven read some of his work”?  We about died laughing at that.

Now, do we agree with this review?  No, we don’t.  Those of us here at STGRB who have read Flat Out Love (i.e. Athena and Stitch) say that it is a fantastic book.  In fact, it’s so good, even Jeff Bezos recommended it.  However, does this guy have the right to state his opinion?  Yes, he does.  Although we don’t agree with the manner in which he does it, he still has a right to state his opinion without being harassed.

Have we seen the trolls harass reviewers before?  Yep!  You all remember Chris who left a review of Katherine Ashe’s book in Reviewer Subterfuge?  Well, the trolls harassed Chris to the point where he eventually just asked Amazon to remove his account altogether.  This is precisely the reason we started .  To keep the trolls from harassing not just authors, but also other reviewers.  It needs to stop. (If you haven’t already signed, please click the link above.)

So beware when you’re roaming the fora.  The trolls are a nasty lot.  For all their self-professed sainthood, they really have earned their name.

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